Lost and found. But mostly lost.

Last Thursday, I grabbed a must-read book off the shelf downstairs and brought it up to my bedroom. At least, I *THOUGHT* I did. Now I can't find it anywhere. It isn't in my bedroom, it isn't on the bookshelf, and it is nowhere in between. I know because I have retraced my footsteps at least two dozen times.

Maybe the dog ate it?

I have combed the entire house. I have looked EVERYWHERE. In the refrigerator. In the garbage. In my closet and under the bed. In drawers and in closets. Even inside my car. 

The sad thing is, unless I am able to locate this volume before the weekend, I am going to have to replace it. 

Which practically guarantees I will find it. As soon as the replacement arrives.

* * *

I have a long history of losing things, and a few miraculous stories of recovery.

Several years back, I set a sterling silver ring sitting on a store shelf while I tried some hand cream. I forgot to put it back on my finger and left the store without it; I returned just minutes later to retrieve it, but it was no longer on the shelf. I assumed that someone else had picked it up and walked off with it, but left my contact information with the shop owner just in case. To my great surprise, I heard from her months later; they had done some remodeling, and spotted my ring on the floor behind a shelf. In retrospect, I'm not sure which was more surprising - that she found the ring or that she actually remembered me and still had my phone number.

A couple of Christmases ago, I received a Starbucks gift card from one of my piano students along with their annual holiday greeting, but when I went back to the days' mail to grab the card and put it in my wallet, it wasn't there. I searched high and low for it, to no avail. More than a year later, I pulled a pocketbook I don't use very often out of my closet and, lo and behold, that Starbucks card was tucked into an old wallet hidden inside the pocketbook. I have no recollection of putting it there, but apparently I did.

I wasn't so lucky with my first cell phone, left in a public restroom stall; a nice pair of sunglasses that disappeared one day at the beach; a silver Skagen watch that slipped off my wrist somewhere between a cruise ship and my car parked at the port. And still missing are my Zoppini charm bracelet, which I spent a couple of years and a ridiculous amount of money completing; a cherished black leather jacket; and my diamond stud earrings, a long-ago gift from my ex-husband. I keep hoping these items will turn up in an unlikely place. But as the months and the years go by, the possibility seems less and less likely.

Maybe if I were better organized/less scattered/twenty years younger, I wouldn't lose so many things. As it is, I might need to develop some preventive strategies.

A place for everything and everything in its place. Never leave personal items unattended in a public venue, even for a moment.

Or maybe, like Uncle Billy in It's A Wonderful Life, I should try tying strings around my fingers.

Do you have any lost and found stories or helpful strategies to share?