# Things are there, then they aren't, then they are **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 30, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340 "2016-07-30T23:41:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/41 "2016-08-19T10:18:48Z")
Mostly, I think it’s just stupidity: When I’m stressed, I’m not smart enough to look for something and actually identify things at the same time (which are two different processing tasks). But you know when someone has a stroke, and they loose the ability to notice anything on the left (or right) side? Visual hemiagnosia, or spatial neglect? I wonder if sometimes I’m experiencing a specific mind failure rather than just stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![WildBlueYonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WildBlueYonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildBlueYonder)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/42 "2016-08-19T12:32:27Z")
Black hole anyone? I can never find anything in my purse unless I dump it out and there you find it all! So anyway Yeah happens all the time here. I chalk it up to the black hole, otherwise how can it not be there on the table all by itself and I come back in and its there! Blast the link to scientific explanations and just be assimilated! ---
**Author:** ![Declanium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Declanium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declanium)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/43 "2016-08-19T23:28:11Z")
Hmmmm. Never once happened to me. When I lose something, it’s lost ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/44 "2016-08-20T01:13:20Z")
We also blame it on the [blue guys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Minutes) not getting everything back where it belongs. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/45 "2016-08-20T19:28:00Z")
I always put the clothes I plan to wear the next day into the bathroom before I leave the house. One day I put my outfit, including the white sneakers, into the bathroom. Next day…only one white sneaker. Still haven’t found the other one. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/46 "2016-08-20T19:50:21Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I always put the clothes I plan to wear the next day into the bathroom before I leave the house. > > One day I put my outfit, including the white sneakers, into the bathroom. > > Next day…only one white sneaker. > > Still haven’t found the other one. Did you look beside the road? That is where most single shoes disappear to. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/47 "2016-08-22T00:17:44Z")
When I worked at the University of Chicago, my office was broken into. They stole a clock radio and an electric typewriter I’d had for years. About three years later we moved here. After we’d lived in a rented house for one year and our current house for about five years (having packed and moved twice), the “stolen” electric typewriter turned up on the bottom shelf of a closet in the hall. Neither of us put it there and it was a closet we used all the time. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/48 "2016-08-23T02:03:53Z")
We’re keeping an eye on our daughter’s house and cats while she’s away on vacation, so obviously she gave me one of her house keys. My husband was going over there to check out some maintenance items she asked him to look at, so I took the key off my keychain and, unable to find another actual key chain, fastened a couple of large yellow paperclips to it. So he took the key and within 10 minutes had managed to lose it. Hours later he found it on the floor of his vehicle. “But I looked there twice before, and it wasn’t there!” Yeah, right. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/49 "2016-08-23T03:39:09Z")
> [@Tapiotar](#): > > Keys. Keys have the ability to dematerialize and rematerialize at will. You must never consciously look for keys. If you suspect you will soon have a need for keys, then start a frantic search for something else, wallet, glasses, anything. You will find the keys while looking for the something else. You must then hang on to them and don’t let go. Walk straight to the car. Get in and drive. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/50 "2016-08-23T04:01:49Z")
> [@Sahirrnee](#): > > I lived in a house that liked to make things disappear, only to have them reappear somewhere where I know I didn’t put it. > > Like once I put a can of Pledge on the dining table and when I turned back to get it, it was gone. > I couldn’t find it anywhere, I even checked the fridge. > > I found it months later in the closet of the spare bedroom, in the closet, behind a bunch of boxes that had not yet been unpacked. > > I know damn well I did not carry the can upstairs, go into the unused bedroom, and hide it behind a bunch of boxes. > > It happened all the time in that house. Obviously some kind of hidden central vacuum system that sucked things out of one area and deposited them into another. > [@Maastricht](#): > > Science to the rescue. [Care2 is the world's largest social network for good, a community of over 40 million people standing together, starting petitions and sharing stories that inspire action.](http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-its-so-easy-to-misplace-things-and-how-to-find-them-again.html) So **Sahirrnee** went upstairs and, for no discernible reason, placed a can of pledge behind a bunch of boxes in an unused bedroom and then immediately forgot doing so? Pull the other one, why don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340/51 "2016-08-23T12:25:17Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > My glasses do this all the time. Especially when I’m laying in bed. > > And they seem to only disappear when I get a text on my phone. Or I need to rerad the back of a package for cooking directions. > > Of course, when I don’t need them, I’m piratically tripping over them. > > If I am a part of the matrix, my programmer has a twisted sense of humor. So do my mother’s glasses. There have been times she’s phoned me, desperate, because she can’t find them anywhere. Once they were atop her head (it’s a pair of glasses Mom, not a diadem!), at least twice they’d fallen between the pillow and arm in her favorite armchair, and the last time they were in the fridge. What, isn’t that how you get cool glasses? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-are-there-then-they-arent-then-they-are/761340.md?page=2)