What Makes Me Laugh

Only one rule applies when you’ve lost something: The last thing you’ll remember about it is saying, “I need to put this in a special place so I don’t lose it.”

On Friday, I returned from a work trip feeling a little sore, tired, and cranky. Doug had made a special effort to keep a clean house while I was gone, and it was wonderful to walk into a neat and tidy living room. There was just one problem. Something smelled. I didn’t know what it was, or quite where it was, but it was funky.

 ”Something smells,” I told Doug, going through my usual litany of questions like he was on the witness stand.

“How long has the laundry  been in the washer?” “Did you take the compost out?” “Is the garbage empty?” “How about the litter box?”

Poor guy. He had obviously made an effort to clean the house, and I was ruining his good job by grousing about the hint of something only slightly foul that kept floating through the air. I kept sniffing around the house, and finally decided that the new kitty litter made out of corn was the problem, so I headed to the store for a replacement. 

The only problem was — I couldn’t find my wallet. I had walked in the house with it, that I knew, and I remembered thinking that I should put it somewhere where it wouldn’t get lost because I didn’t know where my regular purse was (I was carrying it in a backpack). I searched the usual spots — countertops, bedspreads, my backpack, the dirty wash — and it was nowhere to be found. 

I went outside, where Doug was finishing putting in the hoses for the garden. “I lost my wallet,” I said. “It’s in the house somewhere, but I don’t know where. Can you help me find it?”

Doug agreed to help search for awhile. Meanwhile, I was thinking that if it had been the reverse situation, I would have known immediately where his wallet was and could have described to him in minute detail its location from a satellite phone. But men (at least my particular male) don’t really like to keep track of their spouse’s possessions. Anyway, he went outside, and I finally found the wallet in a corner of the entryway, where it had fallen out of my backpack. Was that the special place?

I shook my head at myself and went to the store. Shopping took about 20 minutes, but the lines were long at checkout, and just as I was about to reach the cashier I started to rummage in my purse and realized that my wallet wasn’t in it. I searched it, and then searched it again. Na da. I almost slapped my palm against my head. I had put it on my desk and not in my purse before I left (don’t ask me why). So, I slipped out of line trying to act like I forgot to buy mayonnaise or something, and left my full cart in the back of the canned goods aisle. Zipped home. Picked up wallet. Zipped back to store. Cart still there!

When I got back to the house Doug was walking around the house naked trying to find the New Yorker and Reader’s Digest. I swear to god. He had undressed for a bath, and then realized that the magazines he had set aside “in a special place” that morning to read in the tub had somehow disappeared. 

“Here’s one from April!” I shouted from the bedroom.

“No, I’m looking for the latest one!” he shouted back.

We searched high and low and I made sure all the curtains were drawn. Finally, after I had searched the same place four times, I heard, “Ha! I found it!”

“Where were they?”

“In the clothes basket,” he said. “Buried under a bunch of your stuff.” I think I detected just the slightest hint of accusation in his tone before I heard him slip into the bathtub and give a small yelp. 

“What’s wrong?”

“The water got cold while we searched.”