You’ve probably had this happen before: the laundry is finished. You go to find a shirt or socks, shorts, whatever. The item you are looking for is nowhere to be found. How do you track it down because you know it’s in the house somewhere?
Recently, this puzzle arose in our home. I wear a long sleeve green Under Armour shirt for multiple athletic situations. With old man baseball starting again for the 2023 season, it has been in and out of the laundry successfully 4-5 times this spring. It’s re-emerged successfully until this past week, when it chose to make a disappearing act.
Where to start the hunt? Of course, the first place to look is the drawer where it is typically stored. Flipping through tee shirts revealed nothing. This was done twice for safety precautions.
Next, explore the baseball clothing storage drawer. Look through each item. Again, nothing.
Could it still be in the basement stuck to the top of the washer or dryer? Of course it could. Go downstairs. Spin the two appliances and look inside. See if anything drops or is adhering to the apparatus as the inanimate object mocks you. Nope.
Hmmm, okay, what’s next? Ah, perhaps it decided to stay in my baseball bag. This is a long shot. There’s no reason I would have taken it off and put it in there, but you never know. Forage around my glove, bat, shoes, batting helmet, used water bottle, sunscreen and it’s not there either, as expected.
Wait! The car! Maybe I took it off and flung it in there. No way. I never get undressed before I come home. Still, worth a shot. A quick examination proves my initial point that my memory is intact.
I invest my wife in the search. She suggests all the options I’ve already pursued, but I give the logical ones another fuller examination just to be sure (the two drawers).
When our kids were young, we always told them to retrace where they’d been to find things. Go through your memory. Recreate the situation. Follow it to its conclusion.
The problem with the green Under Armour shirt is I have no recollection of taking it off in any odd place. I stripped, tossed it in the laundry chute. Then put it away when the laundry was done.
As my wife enters the equation, she brings her ever-talented search skills into play. She forages here and there, sifting through things, getting a sense of the terrain. After a bit, I hear the “AHA, found it” moment. YES!
Where do you think it was? No place I’d searched, but someplace close.
When it went into its regular drawer, I placed it on top of my other tee shirts. Closing the drawer pushed the thin-layered Under Armour material through a crack and into the back BEHIND the drawer. My wife saw this, found the shirt, and we devised a coat hanger into a fish-hook to pull it out.
“I knew I’d find it,” she said. I knew she would, too. “I’m nothing if not determined,” she added. The oddity is why I didn’t ask her to help sooner. In the grand scheme of finding clothes, hopefully I’ll add this one to my life learning curve.
Recently, this puzzle arose in our home. I wear a long sleeve green Under Armour shirt for multiple athletic situations. With old man baseball starting again for the 2023 season, it has been in and out of the laundry successfully 4-5 times this spring. It’s re-emerged successfully until this past week, when it chose to make a disappearing act.
Where to start the hunt? Of course, the first place to look is the drawer where it is typically stored. Flipping through tee shirts revealed nothing. This was done twice for safety precautions.
Next, explore the baseball clothing storage drawer. Look through each item. Again, nothing.
Could it still be in the basement stuck to the top of the washer or dryer? Of course it could. Go downstairs. Spin the two appliances and look inside. See if anything drops or is adhering to the apparatus as the inanimate object mocks you. Nope.
Hmmm, okay, what’s next? Ah, perhaps it decided to stay in my baseball bag. This is a long shot. There’s no reason I would have taken it off and put it in there, but you never know. Forage around my glove, bat, shoes, batting helmet, used water bottle, sunscreen and it’s not there either, as expected.
Wait! The car! Maybe I took it off and flung it in there. No way. I never get undressed before I come home. Still, worth a shot. A quick examination proves my initial point that my memory is intact.
I invest my wife in the search. She suggests all the options I’ve already pursued, but I give the logical ones another fuller examination just to be sure (the two drawers).
When our kids were young, we always told them to retrace where they’d been to find things. Go through your memory. Recreate the situation. Follow it to its conclusion.
The problem with the green Under Armour shirt is I have no recollection of taking it off in any odd place. I stripped, tossed it in the laundry chute. Then put it away when the laundry was done.
As my wife enters the equation, she brings her ever-talented search skills into play. She forages here and there, sifting through things, getting a sense of the terrain. After a bit, I hear the “AHA, found it” moment. YES!
Where do you think it was? No place I’d searched, but someplace close.
When it went into its regular drawer, I placed it on top of my other tee shirts. Closing the drawer pushed the thin-layered Under Armour material through a crack and into the back BEHIND the drawer. My wife saw this, found the shirt, and we devised a coat hanger into a fish-hook to pull it out.
“I knew I’d find it,” she said. I knew she would, too. “I’m nothing if not determined,” she added. The oddity is why I didn’t ask her to help sooner. In the grand scheme of finding clothes, hopefully I’ll add this one to my life learning curve.