When our kids were young, we developed a rule when they lost something: Retrace your steps. It worked (almost always).
“Dad, I can’t find my scarf.”
“Where did you have it last? Did you leave it in the car? How about the living room couch? Let’s go look.”
Off we’d go, starting from point one. Moving to wherever the next logical place was. Then spot numbers three and four, if they could remember that far back. If not, I’d pose questions to jog their memory.
“Where were you before you put your bicycle away.”
“Playing over at Matt’s.”
“Okay, let’s go over to their house and see if it is there.”
As noted earlier, eventually, most of the time, it showed up if you traced your steps back far enough. I felt vindicated. Like patenting an invention. I’d figured out a crafty method that successfully worked time after time.
As an adult, we still have to trace our steps. Reading glasses are a perfect example. Both our parents were fond of forgetting where they placed their reading glasses. Though that happened in the latter stages of their lives, so the method of tracking your steps wasn’t as easily successful since the short-term memory often couldn’t pull up where they’d been.
You can go nuts trying to figure out where you left something. It happened to me recently regarding my winter cap and a Green Bay Packers scarf I’d worn outside then placed somewhere I couldn’t remember.
Logically, it should have gone in the laundry. I checked thoroughly in the basket at the bottom of our laundry shoot, but no dice.
From there, the next step was to look where I always placed the cap. That is typically in a pile next to my bed. Neither article of clothing was there. Hmmmm? What next?
Perhaps it was in the car. I went and looked under the seats, and on the floor in the back, but again, without success. Frustration set it.
You keep pushing your brain in these situations. “Okay, did I have my backpack with me somewhere and left it inside?” Nope.
“Did I accidently throw it on the closet floor?” Can’t find it there.
“Did it already get washed and it came back upstairs, but got mixed up with some other article of clothing? Rummage through all the drawers and find nothing.
Take a deep breath. Think where you’ve been in the last day.
This turned on the electric light bulb thought machine and I remembered wearing it to our workout facility. “Did I drop it somewhere? Did I take it off and lay it down?”
Going through those options, I remembered setting it down to use the electronic massage chair “OH YEAH.” Drove on down there. Checked in the lost and found.
Bam, right there on the shelf the instant we stepped inside. The great feeling of knowing you conquered something silly that doesn’t really matter that much: Retracing your steps to find an article of clothing.
I didn’t solve the U.S. hunger problem. Nor develop a new technology to mitigate global carbon emissions. But, man, did I ever feel vindicated.
“Dad, I can’t find my scarf.”
“Where did you have it last? Did you leave it in the car? How about the living room couch? Let’s go look.”
Off we’d go, starting from point one. Moving to wherever the next logical place was. Then spot numbers three and four, if they could remember that far back. If not, I’d pose questions to jog their memory.
“Where were you before you put your bicycle away.”
“Playing over at Matt’s.”
“Okay, let’s go over to their house and see if it is there.”
As noted earlier, eventually, most of the time, it showed up if you traced your steps back far enough. I felt vindicated. Like patenting an invention. I’d figured out a crafty method that successfully worked time after time.
As an adult, we still have to trace our steps. Reading glasses are a perfect example. Both our parents were fond of forgetting where they placed their reading glasses. Though that happened in the latter stages of their lives, so the method of tracking your steps wasn’t as easily successful since the short-term memory often couldn’t pull up where they’d been.
You can go nuts trying to figure out where you left something. It happened to me recently regarding my winter cap and a Green Bay Packers scarf I’d worn outside then placed somewhere I couldn’t remember.
Logically, it should have gone in the laundry. I checked thoroughly in the basket at the bottom of our laundry shoot, but no dice.
From there, the next step was to look where I always placed the cap. That is typically in a pile next to my bed. Neither article of clothing was there. Hmmmm? What next?
Perhaps it was in the car. I went and looked under the seats, and on the floor in the back, but again, without success. Frustration set it.
You keep pushing your brain in these situations. “Okay, did I have my backpack with me somewhere and left it inside?” Nope.
“Did I accidently throw it on the closet floor?” Can’t find it there.
“Did it already get washed and it came back upstairs, but got mixed up with some other article of clothing? Rummage through all the drawers and find nothing.
Take a deep breath. Think where you’ve been in the last day.
This turned on the electric light bulb thought machine and I remembered wearing it to our workout facility. “Did I drop it somewhere? Did I take it off and lay it down?”
Going through those options, I remembered setting it down to use the electronic massage chair “OH YEAH.” Drove on down there. Checked in the lost and found.
Bam, right there on the shelf the instant we stepped inside. The great feeling of knowing you conquered something silly that doesn’t really matter that much: Retracing your steps to find an article of clothing.
I didn’t solve the U.S. hunger problem. Nor develop a new technology to mitigate global carbon emissions. But, man, did I ever feel vindicated.