Losing it over losing things!

I have no idea why this works but if I can't remember something I recite the alphabet and somehow when I get to the right letter I remember.

I'm a firm believer in the theory that every house has a 'black hole' into which things jump when you're looking for them - they then leap out when you've given up, and lurk innocently - looking skyward and whistling - in a place that you KNOW you've searched...
This explains why I took the house apart trying to find the envelope containing tickets for a show that I bought months ago (and put carefully away in the bureau) and the day after we should have gone, still feeling upset, I walked into the living room (regularly tidied and dusted) and the envelope was in the middle of the mantlepiece...!

SueDoku If you booked your tickets online, or sometimes even in the theatre, they can bring up the transaction and let you in sans tickets.
My friend had booked for a group of us to go to a concert, and realised, halfway there, that she had left the tickets behind. She was panicking, but after a quick computer check they let us all in, without any problems.

Every now and again I go through a different drawer or cupboard to tidy it or chuck out what’s defunct and I’ve had some real surprises - things I’ve bought and forgotten I’d bought (a beautiful pair of new slippers on top shelf of wardrobe just last week) and things I kept and promptly forgot about ‘the might come in handys’ often re-appear for a new lease of life

Have you hung something on top of it and put it away in a wardrobe?

I can never find anything... Goes of contemplating life, the universe and everything....

Thanks GreenGran78 - unfortunately, in this case I'd popped into the theatre when I was out shopping & (even more irritatingly) paid in cash, as the tickets weren't hugely expensive. So I'd absolutely no paper or electronic trail to use. I did ring the theatre, but without any evidence they couldn't help us ..

I seem to spend my life looking for things! I'm inclined to pick something up to take it somewhere, get distracted on the way and put it down, and completely forget where I put it! I eventually find things in the oddest places.

This thread has had me laughing out loud and empathising with many of the 'lost' items. Especially Well Walked's tale of the hat and gloves episode! I'm also a great believer in the term 'Hiding in plain sight' which would account for finding things where you'd looked 3 or 4 times before.

I bought a bag recently with various zipped compartments as I'm fed up with not finding my mobile phone in previous bags. I thought right I'll always put my mobile in the front compartment/pocket for evermore so that I don't have that heart stopping moment of 'I think I've left my mobile somewhere as I can't find it in my cavernous bag'. Although why I should describe it as a heart stopping moment I don't know as it's hardly life changing is it, losing a mobile? Anyway do I follow my own advice of actually putting it in that compartment? Of course not.....

I do recall one year on holiday in Corfu on a pebble beach I'd taken off my newly acquired engagement ring to go swimming. It was new and I didn't want it getting wet and slipping off in the water. Putting it back on I dropped it and watched it disappear down through the pebbles. Could we find it? Even though I could pinpoint exactly where it had disappeared. I think I was getting a bit overraught so my OH told me to go away while he did a systematic search of that area of the beach. Two hours and many displaced pebbles later he found it. I can only assume as we were digging and rifling through the pebbles it was sinking deeper and deeper down.

Ha ha! so it’s not just me! I’m afraid my house is in a muddle (due to depression and not caring about tidying up!). Hence, when i mislay something there are one hundred places it could be, and the longer I look, i get into a panic thinking i’m ‘losing it’ ?. Now, i try to keep a basket where i put my most important papers, keys, phone etc. - which helps somewhat - if i remember to put said articles actually in the basket in the first place! Now i stop looking, give myself time to calm down - and inevitably the item/s end up ‘staring me in the face’, all the time,as many of you other lovely grannies so aptly describe. I do have a fear of the dark, and living out in the sticks where the lekky goes off quite frequently in the evening, I have taken to pinning a small torch to my jumper! Also, if i’m about to do anything with a slight element of risk, like stepladder stuff, i always keep my mobile phone securely on my person so if i should have an accident and can’t move much, hopefully I can phone for help! Every day I see myself turning into my darling mother - who also had a well developed sense of self-preservation. She lived to over 90 tee hee! God bless us all. ?

Take it off eBay till you find it again.

Maggiemaybe l lost my car keys and even tepirted it to the police as I was out the last time I knew l had them. I ordered a new key from the dealer. I took the car in so they could connect the car code to the key and when I picked the car and key up they also had the original key. It had fallen down between the seats although we had checked there it was deeper down. They then told me to try starting the car next time and if the car starts the keys are in the car. Just a pity they didnt tell me before I paid nearly €200 for the new key.

A coat is a large object to lose! I'm with you MissA that you've posted the wrong coat. Look up the other one you listed on Ebay and see if that's still in your house. You could contact the buyer and ask if she received correct coat.

Very strange. Let us know if it shows up.

I often look for my reading glasses and find them on my head. But as a person who has a place for everything I rarely lose things and if I do, it SO bugs me.

One of my favourite people where I worked 10 years ago was searching through his desk tsking and tutting, walked off, walked back, walked over to me and just as he opened his mouth I said "it's in your top pocket". He'd been looking for a cheque from a client that he'd safely put in the pocket of the shirt he was wearing - I only saw it as he was walking towards me with the top poking out ...

When I lose things I have just had and know are somewhere, I try retracing my steps, first mentally sitting in a comfy chair thinking,

when did I have it last?
where was I?
what happened? (door-bell or phone rang, DH said something, cat wanted in or out?)
what did I do after I had had it last?

then I go through the house looking in the likely and the unlikely places properly (this is important, take coats out of cupboards etc, don't just look)

Hope you find it soon.

If I see a really nice card that I think would be good for someone I buy it and put it away in cupboard to keep it safe. I can rarely find that special card when I want it. The other day I looked in cupboard for one I had bought for my sister a few weeks before. I could not find it and had to buy another one. A few days later I was putting my MOT certificate in cupboard to keep it safe and there was the card for my sister. I swear it was not there a few days earlier. I sometimes wonder if someone moves them.

I've lost my favourite reading glasses AGAIN! They are lenses that are reading prescription graduating to nothing so everything doesn't go fuzzy when I look up. I have a spare pair but they are the fuzzy kind. I have searched everywhere. I am very sad. ?

Once my Mum went shopping and came back and put shopping away as normal. Later in day she looked for her purse and could not find it. She started to panic and rang my sister who went to her and she rang around every shop my Mum had been to that morning and then rang the police to see if it had been handed in. My sister rang bank and cancelled her debit and credit card. Later in day my Mum went to fridge and in salad compartment she found purse which she had placed there along with tomatoes she had bought in market in the morning. If ever I misplace my purse I think of it and have a chuckle.

I agree St Anthony is usually helpful but...
... I was sixteen when I prayed, "Good St. Anthony, send me a man" and it took him the better part of thirty years to find one who wanted to stay!

This Aries thinks it's under another coat on a hanger in the wardrobe.

I done the same thing many times and always find 'it' in a wardrobe.

Good luck with both eBay and finding it!!!

I thought St Anthony would find things you had lost grandtante, so had you mislaid a man and wanted to find the same one again, he may have worked a bit more speedily!

Well, I still didn't find the coat.
I'm resigning myself to the fact that its has just disappeared into the ether.
It is only age 11-12, so not huge.
Well, its not anything now, because it has ceased to exist.

I'm having a good laugh at some of these posts and shall show them to my daughter who is worried that she's losing her marbles after doing some if the same stuff.

Miss A please do let us know if you find it and where! I'm almost as frustrated as you.

I lost the Avon book once. It was in the freezer....

I have a bad record with passports. about 20 years ago I was due to join my sister for a weekend in Paris when I couldn't find it anywhere. I leapt on a train for Liverpool and threw myself on the mercy of the Passport Office who obliged within an hour. A few weeks later, what should pop up in a drawer where I'd looked for it? Yes. You've guessed it.
At the beginning of January just before I was to be picked up for a flight to NZ, I mislaid my passport. Panicking and tearful, I almost tore the house apart, only to find the thing sitting beside my printer where I'd taken it to copy it! Of course.