The Land of Missing Objects

I don't usually forget things. In fact, I am notoriously good at remembering things. I saw a mom at the library who used to come into the place where I used to work and I started asking about her daughter by name and then said, "She'll be four in August, right?" The mom was shocked that I remembered her name let alone her birthday. I'm just good like that with names, numbers and details. Just last week as I was leaving somewhere the hostess remarked, "Oh good, you got your glasses." I had placed them on a table and she'd apparently noticed earlier and hoped that I didn't forget them. "Of course I did, I never forget things." Then I slapped my head and said, I shouldn't have said that out loud, now it's going to come back to bite me you-know-where.

But alas, at some point during this pregnancy, the taking of this online course, and a number of personal things that are going on, I have misplaced the one thing that a person should never go anyplace without: My brain.

I forgot to meet someone someplace last week. I just plain didn't show up and didn't remember until five hours later. That is NOT ME. I felt awful. I was supposed to take Jacob to an indoor play place to for a play date with some of the other moms. It was written on my calendar. But I ran a dozen errands instead. Luckily there were other moms and kids that were going to be there, so hopefully the organizer mom is not to mad at me after getting my e-mail of apology.

I guess it started with the slipper a couple weeks ago. Jacob has these ducky slippers and one night I noticed them laying next to the bed on the floor. The next morning only one was there. Obvious place: Under the bed, right? Well I looked there, and so did Jacob, Zach and my mom (who I enlisted to come over one day for the sole purpose of looking for the missing slipper). We turned the house upside down over the course of one week, and must have looked under the bed twenty times, collectively. One day I had a trip to Target planned so I resigned myself to getting new slippers for Jacob. I added it to the shopping list and then headed upstairs to do something. Mango had been sleeping at the foot of our bed (on their dog bed) but was now gone. She must have messed up the bed skirt while she had been sleeping because it was rumpled a bit and pushed up, revealing a bit of underneath the bed. I could only see that bit of underneath the bed from the exact vantage point of where I was, in the middle of climbing the stairs. And there was the damn slipper.

I couldn't believe it. But everyone knows that great law of Nature whereupon you buy replacement for lost item and them original item shows up. This time Nature decided to mess with me only a little bit, it simply waited until I had given up enough to write the item on the shopping list.

At gymnastics a couple weeks ago I swear I had Jacob's show-and-tell item in my pocket as we were getting ready to come home but when we got home and he was asking for it, I couldn't come up with it. I had to distract him into thinking about something else while I panicked looking all around for it because this was one of his very beloved train pieces. A few days later and a phone call to the gymnastics place I'd given up the search and hoped Jacob would just never ask about it again. He did ask though, next week at gymnastics on a day my mom had taken him there. And the teacher went over to her little drawer and pulled the train piece out! I was so excited about that, more excited than an adult should be about that kind of thing, but I felt like it was a little show of faith from the Universe: "Well you've lost your brain, but don't worry, I'll take care of the really important things while you're busy looking for your brain. All will not be lost."

But the thing that is bothering me now is that I can't find the veggie wash. You know, fruit spray, what you clean the fruits and veggies with before you eat them? Apparently I use it several times a day because that's how many times I've reached under the sink to retrieve it only to realize, once again, oh yeah, it's missing. My first guess a couple weeks ago was that Jacob had mistaken it for cleaning solution or something and had taken it somewhere to clean something inappropriate but he swears he didn't use it and I believe him. The thing that is killing me is that I had just bought a new bottle of it, so what a waste, right? I've literally turned the house upside down looking for it, searching in places that don't even make sense. I put off buying a new one because a bottle lasts like a year so what would I ever do with two bottles once the original showed up? But I did buy a new one yesterday so I'm just waiting now for that old bottle to show up...

What's getting me now though, is I am starting to doubt whether I actually did buy a new bottle. And that's more scary than the thought of never finding the missing item. Because then what, my brain will just go on inventing things that I think have gone missing, when in reality I never had them in the first place?