That happened to me. For high school graduation I received a silver pen engraved with my name. Other writing implements come and go, but THAT one I took care of. And then one day … gone. I looked everywhere but never saw it again.
Is there a Moderator hiding in my laundry room?
And 9/16 sockets and wrenches. I don’t lose them, but I’ve found many, many of them. Always 9/16.
I left my scarf on the bus twice last winter.
Umbrellas. Now I hang it around my wrist.
Is that where they went?!
Oh, this. I can’t count how many umbrellas I’ve lost in my life, but they don’t vanish mysteriously, but I just forget them in stores or offices I visit. And I only notice the loss long after I remember where I might have lost the last umbrella.
Yep for umbrellas. Also, when I smoked, disposable lighters. And sunglasses.
Yeah, I’m still a smoker, and lighters vanish if you’re in company. One of my friends warns everybody around to not leave lighters on the table, because he has a involuntary inclination to bag every lighter he sees.
Scissors. Back when my kids were school-age, I gave up and just started buying scissors regularly, but there is never a pair where you need them. I know this household contains four pairs of kitchen/utility shears, at least six pairs of decent paper scissors, four pairs of cloth scissors, two pairs of hair scissors for humans and two for pets, three manicure scissors, and an innumerable stock of kids’ safety scissors. However, when something needs to be cut, the only ones that can be found are the well-worn kitchen shears or the slightly rusty cloth scissors I inherited from my mom.
I solved the scissors problem. I bought really pricey pair of sewing scissors.
Of course when I need to open a package or cut duct tape they’re the only ones I’m sure where they are. So I have to find others knowing where the good ones are. Arrgghh. Painful.
I’ll use a chefs knife for opening a package before those scissors. Which sorta hurts my heart.
Didn’t the TV show Eerie, Indiana solve this mystery? I seem to recall Henry Gibson being involved with a planet-wide vacuum system that reached into clothes dryers everywhere.
I’m the outlier, I’ve never lost a sock. I buy a dozen identical pairs. I do my laundry once a week. Fourteen socks go in the washing machine and fourteen socks eventually go in my sock drawer.
My gf is the sock loser. Her socks end up in all the wrong places and it doesn’t bother her a bit. She thinks my sock behavior is anal, I think her sock attitude is too damn nonchalant.
Money. My favorite cookies. Tools.
My late Mother had all of your pens in her desk when she passed two years ago. Some of them still worked.
Seriously, there were at least 40 pens in various drawers in her office desk.
Oh man, I’m awful with them. My solution is akin to scatter hoarding them. I have probably a dozen pairs. They should be next to the front door - five or six pairs are. The others are in the aether, and will diffuse into and out of this group over time. Other pairs will be in sensible places. God knows where those places might be, though.
More generally, anything I put down has a tendency to disappear. This is an established property of inanimate objects. My best way of addressing this is, when I put something down, I point at it and say “Stay!”. That works. As long as you remember to do it.
j
In case you’re not joking and you really do this, I’m sure it really helps, as the ritual gives you at least an unconscious memory of the process of putting down the item and thus of the place where you put it.
No, it’s absolutely what I do, and I agree with your suggestion about about how/why it works.
Slight hijack: I can’t walk away from the front door (or a car door) these days without thinking - did I lock that? - and having to go back and check. The solution - which I’m getting better at remembering to do - is, while you’re locking the door, to look at what’s in your other hand. If there’s nothing in your other hand, do something with it - touch the door; touch your nose, hold up three fingers, anything. It works. End of hijack.
j
I’m definitely gonna try this.
This year, it was my garden trowels. Naturally, once I bought one, the other two materialized.
passwords scribbled on scraps of paper
1/2" sockets for socket wrenches
batteries (particularly 9v)
gloves (well, half of a pair at any rate)
birthday candles - always have to buy a new box. The old one gets precisely one use no matter how many candles in it.