Bill's Bulletin Board

Did you ever lose anything?

I don't mean the money you might have foolishly put down, betting the Leafs would make the playoffs this year. I'm thinking more about those little things you misplace, and never find again.

It happens to all of us, staring from when we were kids; losing a particular toy and never figuring out where it could have ended up. I think it still goes on for all of us.

In the course of our lives, we all have to handle little articles that can easily get lost. Little pieces of jewelry, pens, tickets to some event, receipts for income tax purposes. Sometimes change or other small articles fall through holes in pockets. There are lots of ways to lose things. We all have to deal with that, and occasionally these items disappear on us, sometimes never to be seen again. On the other hand, sometimes they are seen again.

Like I said, it happens to all of us, as annoying as it might be.

Some of us deal with such occurrences better than others.

Kids are forever losing things. It's just part of the nature of being a kid, and some parents handle it a lot better than others.

My mother was never very good about dealing with these things. Losing a mitten, or some other small article usually drew a lengthy bawling out, complete with a heavy guilt trip, lectures on the value of money, warnings of impending financial disaster facing the family, etc. She sometimes got very creative, tying in some lost article with the ravages of inflation and faltering economy brought on by some government of which she did not approve.

In fairness to my mother, she had grown up during the Depression, when people were somewhat less frivolous about money. But it got me into the habit of trying to be more careful when it came to losing stuff, and on the occasions when it did happen, I took the prudent step of not telling her.

And she did lighten up a bit as the years went by. One reason for that is there was a show which the family was planning to attend, and she misplaced the tickets. She eventually found them, a couple of weeks after the show. So any time she raised a fuss about somebody, like me, losing something, a gentle reminder of that incident usually cooled things down a bit.

But despite my best efforts to be careful, I still manage to lose things from time to time. And while it's annoying, and while I tend to get angry at myself for doing it, it's seldom a major disaster. I just go out and replace it, or live without.

I've had winter gloves fall out of my coat pockets lots of times, and for reasons I can't figure out, it always seems to be the right glove I lose. Go figure.

People have often remarked that I carry a lot of pens in my shirt pockets. There's a very good reason for that. I always need a pen when doing my job, and they tend to run out of ink at inopportune moments, or people sometimes ask to borrow a pen and forget to return it.

"Asking you if you've got a pen is like asking Bugs Bunny if he's got ears," my wife once wryly observed.

And then pens get dropped or misplaced, especially when I'm busy, so I carry extras.

But I'm not in the habit of carrying extra lens caps for my camera.

One day last week, I noticed the cap was missing. I looked around my office, emptied my camera bag and looked in there, did a quick check under the seats of my car, looked around the table where I put my bag when I get home. I asked my colleagues in the office and my wife at home to let me know if they came upon a lens cap without an apparent owner.

After a couple of days, it appeared clear that the item in question wasn't going to turn up, so I went out shopping to replace it. That wasn't too great a chore, although the clerk in the store I went to had trouble finding a cap of the right size. But his search was eventually successful.

As well, I could think of any number of better ways to spend $8.46.

As I was driving away from the store, I thought of one other place I hadn't looked for the missing cap, namely between the transmission hump and the passenger seat of the car. Having little to lose, I stuck my hand down there, and guess what I came up with. That happy discovery was followed by me muttering several great obscenities under my breath, thinking about that $8.46 I had just wasted.

I should try to look at the bright side, though. Now I have an extra lens cap. The thought really doesn't cheer me up a whole lot.

Things like that have happened to me before too, meaning money has been wasted and I've ended up feeling like a fool.

Beth once bought me a tie clip for Christmas, in the days when she was just my girlfriend before becoming my wife and girlfriend. Some short time after we were married, she noticed two identical tie clips on top of my dresser, recognizing the one she had bought me. I told her that I already had the other one, and decided she didn't need to know that she had bought me a duplicate when I opened her Christmas gift.

I figured I was being thoughtful, except I was lying through my teeth. The truth is I had misplaced the one she bought me, and quickly ran out to get another, hoping I could find one similar enough in appearance that she would never notice. As it turned out, I was lucky enough to find one that was identical. It was a short time after that the I was cleaning out the top drawer of my dresser, and I found the missing tie clip hidden by a couple of pairs of socks.

Well, I guess a spare tie clip can come in handy too.

I wonder how much of a positive spin I have to put on things like this.