I didn't touch the sugar bowl, but I must confess that I took the cookie from the cookie jar.

Who, you?

I have found that asking the house works, but that's partly because I'm fairly positive we have ghosts.

Just sing out, in a friendly way, "OK, I need the sugar bowl now!"

It works for my remotes and the cordless phone, at least.

Kami spirits have placed their hands over the bowl rendering it invisible. You must appease/acknowledge them to get the bowl back.

Check the fridge.

Is it in the cupboard? Wouldn't you like to know?

I'll assume you've found it by now. So, was it next to your keys, or one of the remotes?

I have found that asking the house works

You know, I have found that the St. Anthony prayer works (not the full prayer, just the little "please come around" rhyme. Now, I am not Catholic (though I'm Catholic by heritage) and don't exactly believe that sanctified spirits perform good deeds based on human supplication, but for some reason I'm able to say the prayer, then forget about the lost thing, and very soon it shows up. Some psychological placebo effect, I suppose.

The hilarious thing is that after you discover where I stashed it, you'll be all "Oh, that mudpuppie!", but you'll also be chuckling warmly because you know you love me. And then you'll put a few spoonsful in your cuppa and you'll find that I replaced the sugar with sea salt. Ha ha!

Hey wait - I thought I was the sugar in your sugar bowl.

Some psychological placebo effect, I suppose.

Yeah, ikkyu was mentioning the other day that his method is to think "Where did X go?" and then just to start walking without thinking about it. He said he almost invariably ends up walking right to whatever he needed; his subconscious knows where it is and just needs the rest of his mind to quiet down and let it do its work.

I would imagine that any sort of "I'm turning my brain off and surrendering to not-knowing now" routine would trigger the same sort of effect.

But I still think it's ghosts. :-)

Yeah, ghosts - we call her "vita frun" (the white lady) and my gran and my mom (and now me) are in the habit of asking her out loud where the lost item is. We'll all find whatever it is as soon as the question has been asked. Weird phenomena.

Check the fridge.

You know, that was the first place I looked after the places I usually put it, thinking I'd mindlessly put it away with the milk. Then I realized that with my Fridge of Lilliput and my Massive Condiment and Leftover Museum, I would definitely have realized somewhere in the 5 minute rearranging required to put anything in there that the sugar did not belong. Sometimes I ask the guy who used to own this cabin (and who is no longer extant). "Okay, Jim," I'll say, "where'd you put it?" Sometimes that works, but usually not. He was a bit of a curmudgeon, from what I hear.

I still hadn't found it when I opened this thread, but then I tried ikkyu's trick and there it was on the back of the stove. Right below the shelf it belongs on. That is how I know mudpuppie had it. I'm checking for salt, pupster. I'm onto ya. *chuckles warmly*

*lifts lid to check salt content, finds LT, realizes when mudpuppie said 'salt' she really meant 'fromage'*