When I was in highschool, I had to get up so early that I was basically asleep when I was getting dressed and eating breakfast. I routinely would misplace my keys in this state; the weirdest place I ever found them was in the refrigerator. (I also used to put the cereal in the fridge and the milk on the pantry shelf, much to my mother's annoyance.)

Good luck finding your hardware.

One of my earliest memories was being at the Museum of Science in Boston, and my rain hat blew off. I distinctly remember losing it, crying because I (still) hate losing things, and returning home without it. It was returned to me a few weeks(?) later by some grown-ups at my private elementary school in Cambridge. To this day, I have no idea how the school got the hat. My name was on the hat, but I was not with my school when visiting--why would the museum take the time to track down the owner of a measly child's hat? (Especially pre-internet.)

Question: Where is it?

It's on a bookshelf, or in a kitchen cabinet. Most likely high up where you can't see it without climbing on something.

We had an artificial X-Mas tree (my friend's parent's company which made such items went bankrupt) and this year we couldn't find it and bought another. It turned up eventually and so will your hardware.

All the time. The more stuff we have, the more this happens. It happens particularly often right after a careful cleanup and reorganization.

Currently I'm missing a long dangly gold and amethyst earring. I have a feeling I'll find it next time I get around to sorting all the shoes on the floor of the closet.

I tore my house apart once looking for my husband's wallet. We looked all day, no kidding. Everywhere. Drawers, cars, closets, under the bed, everywhere. And just when we were about to cancel all the cards, I asked him if he'd checked his pants pockets and he swore he had. I thought...one more check, why not. There it was, in his back pocket. I would have laughed harder at him but I did that with my keys once too. So the moral of the story is....look in obvious places because you might be outsmarting yourself. Look where the daybed has been stored, check nooks and crannies around it. Check the toolbox where you store the tools you used to take it apart. Check the pantry where you got the plastic bag from to make sure you didn't set it back down in there. Good luck.

I once lost my glasses when I was wee (probably around 10-11 or so).





They were on my face.

I once searched all over for a pencil while holding one in my hand.

An friend once lost his car keys, walking along a wintry street in Chicago.

Sure enough, after the thaw, he was walking down the same street when he was smacked in the face by a set of keys someone had helpfully picked up and hung from a treebranch. They were his keys.

Your hardware is somewhere very very safe. If it were me, it would be in the white cabinet in the sewing room where we keep *nothing* cause it's an awkward cabinet that serves no purpose.

Great stories, thanks all. I grew up in a cluttered home and developed a strong finding things aptitude early. I have looked in the freezers, and I have logged quality stepladder time.

I will check tool boxes, which I haven't, because they are man-zones.

I'd be all about buying replacement stuff, but how to find? Unknown daybed make and model, probably discontinued. I know it'll turn up eventually.

Maybe we can make it look like it's put together, then when a guest goes to turn in, it crashes down on itself, America's Funniest Home Video style.

It's like a Roald Dahl story, looking for this stuff. Gah.

Question: Where is it?
Probably right where you left it.

I'll show myself out

Could the hardware actually be attached to the daybed? I had a daybed once and when it had to be taken apart, the hardware was placed into a ziploc baggie and taped to the daybed itself.

Question: Where is it?
Probably right where you left it.

Question to Ann Landers many years ago: "How come, when you find something, it's always in the last place you look?"

Her answer: "Um, because after you've found it, you stop looking."

Did you tape it to one of the pieces? No joke, my mom did that once and ended up buying a spare set of the nuts and bolts, only to find the pieces she needed when she started working on it again.

Here are some places to try:

- by the toolkit
- in the fireproof safe
- in your desk.
- in the bowls on your desk
- in the cabinet in the nearest bathroom
- wherever you keep your checkbook, calendar, or cellphone-charging things
- bedside table

Recently I lost my night retainer, which was bad because those things cost a crazy amount of money. I found it underneath the sugar in my pantry.

I have looked taped to the bed, in the safe, in the bathroom, all drawers in the house and most containers. More containers, and the tool areas, I think will be the focus tonight.

Ha, punchtothehead, I thought your retainer was in the sugar bowl, which would be really funny.

Once we found the salt shaker in the medicine cabinet. No explanation was ever found.

I was thinking of making a FaceBook post about how this has been the Winter of Lost Things. AMong the things we have lost in my household (mostly me except for one)

-a red plaid hat
-a black hat
-another black hat and green plaid scarf*
-LT's iPod (probably stolen)
-a camera upload cable
-my ID badge at work

*this one particularly galls. I left it on my seat on the train, and realized it as soon as I stepped off. The conductor wouldn't let me go back, but promised to grab it and turn it in to lost and found. I called lost and found and let them know it should be coming in and to save it for me. I left my number. They didnt' call. I called again to ask if it was there. They said yes! I was happy. I asked them to put my name on it and that I would get it as soon as I could - but that wasn't soon, because I don't normally go to the central hub station. LT went in a day before I could go and I asked him to check. The counter agent said "She already picked it up! She was real happy too!" HE said "uh...I don't think that was her." It wasn't me. Next day I myself went to find out whether it was there. The story then was that it wasn't anywhere it could be seen, but it might be in the manager's office. Went back the next day. Not in the manager's office, but they brought out a big box of hats and scarves. Mine weren't there. "We don't check IDs when people pick up hats and scarves. It's a policy." To which I said, even when I called and specifically asked you to set it aside in my name? I got another manager's phone number and was told he would call. He hasn't called. I'll call tomorrow. I've given up on the scarf, but at this point it's the principle of the thing - this was mishandled, and somebody basically went shopping in the lost and found and took stuff specifically marked with my name. That's bullshit.

It's weird even to me that I care this much. I just happened to be VERY attached to that scarf. I got compliments on it all the time - it was very unusual and I've never seen another like it. Today I tried to find one online, and they just don't exist.

Winter of Lost Things.

My worst lost and found story: this great white sweater I used to own. It had 3/4 length sleeves, was lightweight, went with everything summery, and was the perfect item for visits to hot locations (e.g. Reno) with cold air conditioned places. I left it hanging on my chair back at a sushi bar in a Reno casino, and realized as soon as I got back to my hotel room what I'd done. I called the casino lost and found, and to my shock and delight they said they had it. So the next day I went to the lost and found office, and they handed over my sweater, all of us all smiles. I was headed to the airport and felt very lucky to have recovered it before leaving town. I tossed it into my suitcase. BUT when I got home to Seattle, it was this replicant sweater. It was the same color as mine, it even had 3/4 length sleeves, it was lightweight . . . but the neckline was all wrong, the fit was all wrong, the look of the darn thing was all wrong. It still hangs in my closet, mocking me. And I've never found another sweater I like as well as my lost one.

Damn it.

All of these stories, looking for the glasses on my face or on my head, looking for the keys that were in my pocket/purse, looking for my coffee, my beer, my water. sigh. I do this All The Time. The mobile phone is my only phone. I lose it absurdly often. I have put hunter orange tape on it, which only helps a little. I lose items of clothing, sometimes for weeks. Then, it turns up, someplace Totally Obvious, like in the laundry basket where I looked, like, 19,000 times.

My possessions are messing with my head. Or, and this is plausible, it's The Little Dog. He knows that if I have my nervous breakdown, I'll be home all day, and can let him out, then in, then out, then in. and play tug and throw the ball. He's a devious Little Dog, disguised as a cheerful, happy, playful beastie. I'm going to have to keep an eye on him.

rainbaby ... what else did you pack up and put away? Is it possible to check for this someplace with the other stuff you had to stash during the renovation? Maybe you just haven't unpacked it yet.

This sounds like something I'd do. Or I might think ... OK let's see, I'll be needing this in the spring, what else to I use in the spring? Of course, rain boots for the garden. And there the hardware would be, stuck inside one of my rain boots.

Be sure to update when you find it.

It's in the liquor cabinet. All important things go in the liquor cabinet.