Lost in Desperation or the Case of the Missing Dress Sock.
It was a Wednesday evening and family members started trickling home after church. It was also the night the bed broke – well, for the first time. My husband and I began wrestling with the mattress. Soon after, our daughter appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. “Mrs. Page brought me home.”
“That’s nice dear,” I replied while doing a backbend trying to right the mattress.
“Daddy left me at church.”
Our child was M.I.A. for 30 minutes and we didn’t know it. That’s our preferred way to roll.
Mini Me.
Dress socks, athletics socks, underwear – all disappear from our house quicker than a WWII squadron in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. My husband bought a pair of khakis. He brought them home never to lay eyes on them again. I bought a pair of black tights at Amelia’s. I loved them; they hid a multitude of sins that only women who reach a certain age appreciate. They were my saviors and I have torn the house apart board by board looking for them.
I highly suspect the Khakis and the tights ran off together and might be doing naughty things in the bottom of a neighbor’s laundry basket.
I’ll let you in on another dirty secret. When I can’t find things, I just buy more. When a super-organization day miraculously erupts, it’s amazing what surfaces and in what quantity. The volume of products found usually corresponds to the level of anxiety felt at the time we were unable lay our hands on whatever necessity.
A recent cleaning of our cabinets resulted in 10 bottles of suntan lotion, six boxes of confectionary sugar, 20 cans of Raid, eight rolls of Glide dental floss (mint flavor) and countless canisters of orange-flavored insoluble fiber.
In response to all this chaos, my husband thinks he has a hidden drawer to stash all the things he can’t live without. A recent inspection of his trove revealed fingernail clippers, cords to recharge electronic products, one white tapered candle, a bottle of water, a pack of M&Ms, a mini roll of Tums, a half roll of quarters, dental floss and a 5-inch Phillips head screwdriver. Aha!
After getting locked out so many times with the only remaining key to our back door in Atlanta with my husband, I considered moving the only option. Thankfully, in a moment of clarity, I bought a new set of locks and then paid a nice gentleman to install them.
While bemoaning the most recent disappearance of a child, contact lens and my mind to a friend, she suggested St. Anthony — the patron saint of lost things. Wonder if he would consider a wayward Methodist? I wouldn’t be the best Catholic if keeping track of beads and such was a requirement of the faith. But I can say a really heartfelt, tearful prayer when desperate. Better yet, who is the patron saint of desperation?
