Today is one of those gorgeous, Spring days that shout “Let’s go birding!” and I respond with “Sure, why not?” I get myself all ready to go to Brigantine or maybe Hutchinson Memorial Forest. Grab my purse and get in the car. No binoculars. Okay, maybe they’re at my office. Drive to the office. No binoculars. I start to worry. Okay…maybe they’re at the Mosquito Labs. Drive there and same result: no binoculars. Check the bird room where I keep my equipment. No. Binoculars.
This is not good news for an ornithologist.
Fortunately, my binoculars were the Pentax 8x40’s, a modestly-priced pair. I am way too rough with glasses to buy the really good stuff, like Swarovskis or Leicas. And the Pentax has taken a lot of abuse (ocular cranked sideways by errant mist-net pole, dropped on ground, etc). But I really really liked these binocs.
Now I feel as lost as they are. Not as helpless as the time that doll blanket (I was maybe 5) flew out of the car on the way to Minnesota, but close enough.
So, what inanimate object have you lost that was an integral part of your being? Or of great sentimental value? Or perhaps you’ve found something you knew that was of value to someone but couldn’t get it back to the owner?
Last fall Mr. Scarlett and I were strolling down the Lakewalk in Duluth and took a break on one of the benches near Canal Park, in front of all the hotels. When we got up to continue, I noticed a pair of prescription glasses hanging on the backrest – in good shape, and didn’t seem to have been there long. There was no one around. Where would you even turn in something like that? Fortunately I had a couple of jewelry projects in my purse. So I scarfed one of the small Ziploc bags I keep them in, put the glasses in the bag (to protect them from the elements), and tied it to the back of the bench with a length of waxed linen. If the owner ever came back, s/he would find them well-protected. I wonder what anyone who saw our little package thought . . .
On another day on the same trip, in the same area, we noticed a black leather purse sitting on a patio table outside one of the hotels. Again, not a soul around. Mr Scarlett took it to the door of the nearby glassed-in lounge area, where we could see a woman vacuuming. She said she remembered the woman who had been sitting out there, and that she was probably a guest in that hotel. So at least one of out finds was probably returned to its owner.
Geez, folks, when you go to Duluth, make sure to keep your stuff with you!!
In no way is this intregal to any part of my being, but I once lost a 20 inch butcher knife. My roommate and I were moving into a new apartment, and when we unpacked the kitchen things, we discovered that the drawers were only about 15 inches deep. Where to put the knife? We decided just to leave it on the counter until we figured out what to do about it. A few days later, he asked me where I put the knife. Huh? I didn’t put it anywhere, where did you put it? This became the nagging mystery of the apartment. For years, we kept thinking we would find it behind the oven. We never DID find that knife, and we searched all over that kitchen.
Another mystery – how did I lose a light switch? When I moved into yet another apartment, there was a hall light that we couldn’t find the switch for. It was on when we moved in, and we couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. About two weeks later, (apparently while having some sort of fugue), I noticed a switchplate in an unusual place. Hey, I bet this is for that hall light! I turned off the switch, and sure enough, the light went out. Mr. Del came home, and was impressed. So where’s the light switch? Ummmm … I couldn’t remember. We lived there for two years, and never found the switchplate again, even when the apartment was vacant when we moved out. I used to announce it as a party game whenever people came over – Find the Light Switch! Win a Prize! No one ever did, and the search became a driving passion, a Quixotic quest, if you will, for several of our friends.
My fist Sunday School teacher that I had for years and years had a metal shop. He bent a small bit of titanium into a ring for me. Nothing fancy, just a length of metal, rounded egdes, curled into a ring with one of the edges squished thin and flat. It was pretty, impossibly light, and just really, really cool.
I dropped it in the bathroom one day and never found it again. I still miss it.
Medea’s Child, your story reminded me of when I almost lost my wedding ring. I was on a big navy ship, standing a lot of odd-hour watches and thus wasn’t eating regularly. I started losing weight, and one day I’m in the tiny shower stall, which is dimly lit. I’m all soaped up and my left hand drops to my side and I faintly hear this “tink!” and in a flash I realize what must have happened, and I also realize that the shower drain has no cover, and that if it gets down in there, it’s gone forever. So I bend down, but it’s so dim that in my rush I can’t really see anything on the way down. I blindly clamp my hands to the floor at where I thought the sound had come from, my heart pounding, and I look around carefully and don’t see it anywhere… not on my finger, not on the floor. I open my hands and there it is. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
Well, now I feel a little foolish. I got an email from my friend - my binocs are in Cape May. Whew! I really like these glasses. I realized today that I haven’t been this far away from them since I got them about 8 years ago.
flyboy88, I can only imagine your relief in catching your ring before it was irretrievably lost. I’ve dropped a few rings close to drains myself, but nothing as meaningful as a wedding ring.
Medea’s Child, I know what you mean. I lost a Coptic cross given by my brother over 20 years ago. Searched and search but no luck. It stings. I can only hope that someone found it and treasures it today.
delphica, that light switch story was one of the stranger ones I’ve ever heard! Thanks for the laugh! I’ll be remembering that the next time I grope in the dark for the switch.
Scarlett67, that was a wonderful thing to do for the glasses. Considering how expensive prescription glasses are, I wouldn’t be surprised if their owner re-traced their steps to find your kind gesture.
I lost a pencil case that my friend had made especially for me. It was all the colours of the rainbow and made completely out of zips so that I could open it anywhere I wanted to. Everyone I showed my lovely, lovely pencil case to thought it was fantastic - it was a great size and shape, and it was just perfect. When I lost it one day at university, I was so upset that I wouldn’t even buy myself a new pencil case; I just walked around with my pens in a little make-up bag.
I must have been an incredibly pathetic sight because in the end my boyfriend just bought me a new pencil case shaped like a panda head.
I have been married for over eight years and have been together with my wife for almost twelve years. When we first started dating the future Mrs. Hajario got a Sharper Image catalog in the mail. Among the useless 80’s electronic gadgets was a simple silver bracelet. Each link was a letter and it spelled out “I LOVE YOU.” She pointed it out to me and told me how much she loved it. I kept this fact in the memory bank.
A couple of years later while shopping for a birthday gift for Mrs. H in a mall, I passed a Sharper Image store and remembered the bracelet. I went in a described it and they actually had a couple of them in stock. It was one of my most successful gifts ever. She loved it and wore it every day.
About two years later she lost the bracelet while she was hiking with friends. She was heart broken. She didn’t even tell me about it for two weeks.
The Sharper Image store in town was long gone so I called the number off of their web site. They no longer had the bracelet but when I told my story to the operator she did some research and found the distributor from which they got them. It was a small jewelry store in New York City on the other side of the country. As it turned out, this store was only opened by appointment or for something like two hours a day three days a week and they didn’t have an answering machine. After two weeks of randomly calling the place I reached a live human. Yes, he remembered the bracelet. No, he didn’t carry it anymore but he gave me the number of the manufacturer.
The manufacturer, Gino, was also the designer. He had a small shop that was only he and one or two other people. He was moved when he heard the story of how his bracelet had meant so much to someone and about my quest. He still had a few of them but by law couldn’t sell them directly to the public, only to a licensed jeweler. Gino sold it to a local store near my home and the guy sold it to me. Gino and the storeowner were so touched by my story that Gino sold it to the store for cost and the store didn’t mark up the piece at all.
Needless to say, Mrs. H was thrilled when I gave her a brand new replacement for the bracelet she had lost. The quest took me many hours over three weeks but it was well worth it.
I’m pretty sure I found your light switch. In our last house, there was a switch outside the downstairs bathroom. We lived in that house for 3 years and never did figure out what it controlled, so we just gave up. Naturally, when we sold the house, everyone who came thru had to flick that switch. I figured someone somewhere was getting an annoying light show.
Anyway, regarding the OP, when my folks were moving but still living in their old place, I went to the new house to pull weeds for them and just enjoy a little solitude. Apparently while I was in the yard, one of the local kids snuck in the back and made off with my purse. (The Sheriff figured it was kids by the footprints out the back door.) Apart from the inconvenience of replacing license and credit cards, plus being out $100, there was a little book in that purse that I’d had since I was 6. It was heartbreaking to lose that. Stoopid brat kids anyway…
Shortly after getting my engagement ring, my now-husband and I travelled to visit his family. I hadn’t yet had the time to get my ring sized. It was a little big, but not, I thought, dangerously large. It was snowing as we drove, and the snow kept sticking to the windshield wipers. We pulled off the road at a turnout and I got out to clear off my side. I shook the snow off my hands, got back in the car, and off we went. Two hundred yards down the road I looked down at my hand. It was bare.
We spent at least an hour with a metal detector before realizing that it didn’t work through the snow.
Two months later, when the ground was clear, we went back with another metal detector. After 15-20 minutes it beeped. There was my ring.
Twelve years later, I still can’t believe we found it.
Reminds me of a joke by Stephen Wright…In my house there’s this light switch that doesn’t do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. The other day, I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, “Cut it out.”
hajario, what a sweet story! (And welcome to the boards!)
It’s funny how some of the more innocuous items in our lives can take on such significance. Kayeby’s pencil case or FairyChatMom’s little book. And stories of things found once thought gone. robinh, I can’t imagine how elated you must have felt finding your ring. Two months, that’s amazing.
Seriously, I had a pinky ring that belonged to my deceased sister. One day, while struggling with grocery bags and keys, trying to get the front door unlocked, I heard it tink. I searched all over the cement porch, in all the surrounding flora, but to no avail.
I also lost one ruby earring that belonged to my mother (also deceased). I slept with them on, and when I woke up it was gone. I looked everywhere for it, and when we moved I did an even more careful inspection. I guess it went to the “Lost and Found” in the sky.
When I was just a kid my Aunt made small hooked rugs for my brother and me. His had a clown on it and mine had a tiger on a green background. (Mine was better.) I had it for years. When I left home for good I meant to take it with me. I’ve thought for years that I did and that it was packed away in my things. A couple of years ago I went to look for it and I couldn’t find it!! I’ve ransacked all my belongings several times but it’s nowhere to be found. I can’t really remember the last time I saw it. Damn. I’ve missed my Aunt for years and now I really miss the rug too.
See, Gunslinger made me this pretty ring out of scrap wire all twisted around and held in place with JB Weld. It was too big for my finger, though, so I was wearing it on my thumb. I think I wore it for about two or three days and then my mom told me I had to clean my room. Somewhere in teh course of putting things away in my closet, I lost the ring… it must’ve slipped off my thumb. I cleaned my entire room and closet top to bottom this week and I can NOT find that ring.
racinchikki found her ring! Actually, her mom apparently found it while cleaning up and put it in a jar of change…when racinchikki went to put the change in her piggybank, there it was!
— I also had a ring which I had gotten from my father(now deceased). A silver one. One day I was swimming out at Kaena point on Oahu and when I came out it was gone. I’m sure it’s still there somewhere.
— When ever I played Monopoly I was the iron. I had a wicked 23 game win streak and I retired the piece and put it on a chain around my neck. Wore it 24/7 for several years until I went hiking above Kaneohe. About halfway back down I notice I had something odd in my boot, look down and it’s my chain and my poor lucky iron is lost in the woods. It was bittersweet. Glad to have the chain back, it was also my dads, but really sad about the iron. And you know what, my life had been a lot less luckier since then.
— This one really really ticked me off. When I was 6 we were going away on a weeks vacation and I had all these little powered trucks. I didn’t want them to get stolen so I hid them. I had hidden them so well when we came back I couldn’t find them. Anywhere. sigh.
My favorite of all these is the light switch. If I had lived in that house I would definately turn into a Norman Bates type person. Oh the poor souls that would suffer with a switch that went missing. And in a side note, that was also an episode of Friends.
