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Lost and (sometimes) found A drunken man wandered unto a tent where a service was winding down. The preacher was calling for people to step up, confess their sins and hope to be saved. The man staggered forward and began to confess to one sin after another, the preacher encouraging him. "Come on, brother" he cried, "Tell us everything!" The drunk then confessed to the most embarrassing act he had ever performed. It so startled the preacher that he pulled the man near and whispered in his ear, "Good Lord, man, I would never have told that!" I hesitate to make the following confessions, but my wife and best friend assures me that I have nothing to worry about- as long as I'm not telling everything. Losing things is nothing new with me. It has been going on most of my life. However, in my senior years I've begun to lose or misplace more and more stuff. I feared that I had entered a state of accelerated mental decline until I caught my wife (at least I thought I had) in the act of ripping me off. You see, for several years, I've offered her rewards for finding my lost articles- and she has been very good at it. Only after I've exhausted myself searching, going through pockets, turning things upside down and losing sleep do I call for her help. Invariably, she will come to me with her "miss know-it-all smile" within a day or two, demanding to know exactly what reward I am offering if she finds "the lost thing." When that happens, I breathe a poker-faced sigh of relief, then begin offering the least expensive, but reasonable, reward I dare put forth. That is when the bidding and bargaining becomes intense. Several decades ago I shed my clothes on a swim dock and went for a long swim. Upon returning to the dock, my pants were missing. A strong, gusty wind had blown through while I was in the water and had sent the pants sailing into 30 feet of water. The keys to my business, car and house were gone. I have shortened this story. Two days and 50 dollars later, a young scuba diver found my things 40 feet from the dock. A few years ago, after going out at sunset on a pontoon boat, I arrived home to find that my wallet was missing; then I remembered sitting on the edge of the boat pulling my pants on and "hearing a fish break water" underneath. That was no fish! It was my walletgone forever. On my way to town to buy a fancy new toaster, I placed a loose 50 dollar bill in a jeans pocket. After a quick stop at a service station near home, I drove to town, picked up the toaster and lo and behold, no 50 dollars. On the way home I stopped at the service station and asked the clerk if anyone had turned my money in. He said no, but if it showed up, he would hold it for me. At that point, I felt stupid. My only comeback was to say that since I hadn't written down the serial number, I would have no right to claim it should it show up and he could just forget it. During much of my working life, I've lost many sets of keys. The guys I used to work with would assign nicknames to each other- always some name we had fun with. My nickname was "key man." Objects most frequently lost these days are keys, books and sunglasses. They are nearly always lost in the house. I adore my dear wife but I can't help wondering if she doesn't occasionally hide things from me just so she can collect a reward, which usually consists of anything from a chocolate soda to a dinner anywhere within 50 miles from home. As time goes by, the cost keeps mounting. At this time, I owe her one chocolate soda, two lunches and one dinner.
Truth is, my wife doesn't have a deceptive bone in her body and I know she's never told a lie in her life. So where does that leave me? Well, I sit here bewildered, wondering just how my very special car key disappeared for two weeks and was finally located by my wife in one of her handbagscosting me another dinner, and "we" have no idea how it got there.
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