Losing
things – an oft-repeated event
I was just reading a post from ‘a geriatric grandmother’ and
sympathising with her. Her husband lost his car keys and had to wait a long
time in the cold for a taxi to arrive and take him home.
I cannot blame my
husband’s propensity for losing things on advancing age. For as long as we have
been married he has lost things on a regular basis, habitually not discovering
the loss until after I have taken to my bed and am about to drift off to sleep.
I came to dread the words, ‘Have you seen . . . ?’ I think eventually he
realised this was not the way to endear himself to me so now, under the
pretence of looking himself and not disturbing me, he mutters something to the
effect of, ‘I don’t know where I’ve put it,’ or ‘I know I had them when I was .
. . ‘ These sentences are repeated ad nauseam and at increasing volume until, heaving
a dramatic sigh, I get up and join him in the search. All too often, just as I start
hunting he says, ‘Oh, just found it/them’ and I stumble back to bed, mumbling
ungenerous thoughts.
Our methods of searching differ vastly. Barry opens drawers
and cupboards and turns over the contents so that it looks as if an industrial
digger has travelled through. (On another
note, if he takes an item of clothing out of a drawer and decides not to wear
it, he replaces it at right angles to the rest of the clothes!) Things not
contained (and so much in our house is
not) are turned over and over as though they are in a giant washing machine
All the drawers and doors are left wide open, ready to bite at shins and attack
heads.
When I look for things I tidy as I go, frequently finding
things we had forgotten we had lost. I may not find the article that has
currently gone walkabout but I develop a sense of well-being and calm as some
order is restored.
The worrying aspect of all this mislaying is that it is
contagious and I now lose things that I have just been using. Sometimes it can
be explained by being interrupted in the middle of something – the telephone,
the doorbell, ‘I need a wee,’ (Frankie)
or ‘You haven’t seen . . . ?’ (Barry)
All too often, though, there is no rational explanation and it is a matter of
chance if I discover that which is lost. I bear in mind the advice to Little Bo
Peep and comfort myself that my sheep will return home with their tails behind
them, tails in the shape of scissors, pens, secateurs . . .
The other day, returning from the practice nurse, who had just
examined Barry’s new knee, he suddenly said, with great urgency, ‘I’ve lost my
glasses.’ I was about to turn the car round when he said, ‘Oh, I’m wearing
them.’ I gritted my teeth as he proceeded to offer profuse apologies. To be
fair, he was wearing two pairs of glasses – sunglasses on his hat and reading
glasses round his neck. Why sunglasses on his hat? They’re ready to hand in
case the sun shines– if he remembers he’s got them! As for the glasses round
his neck – they have a magnetic clip at the front, all ready for use.
While he is still recovering, there is less opportunity for
Barry to lose things – he is increasingly mobile, though, so it won’t be long
before the poltergeists reinstate themselves.
