I have occasionally found important papers in with the recycling. I also have found stuff in the wrong file folder.
I feel your pain. It seems the older I get, the more I do this sort if thing. :-<
Is it inside the envelope of the bill that was on the same pile (assuming you opened the bill)? Inside your purse or the pocket on the outside of your purse?
“Where are places that you have found a lost item ?”
Just like the famous saying: The last place that I looked.
This is so frustrating! I purchased a tablet stand to separate/hold important mail until I can get to it (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071K5SPKN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). One time my spouse used the back of an important piece of mail to make notes while on a phone call. I found it in the office, eventually! I once carried something off to the laundry room and left it there. You will have to search everywhere!
Usually what happened is you put the item down…and the next day you swear you didn’t do anything with it but it isn’t there…but there is something that you forgot you did…like did you put it somewhere to “process” it ?
Or did it get blown off the table and is hiding behind the table?
DId it get thrown out?
I have found items in the place where I originally thought I put them.
For example, one Christmas I looked for the pictures of the kids we were giving the grandparents, and they weren’t in the drawer I remembered placing them in. I spent my whole Christmas break going through every closet, drawer, and cabinet searching for these wallet sized pictures. Finally I went back to the original drawer I thought they were in, and there they were! Since the drawer was full, and the furniture was an antique, I think the pictures got stuck in the upper part of the cupboard the first time I looked.
I would lose an important paper at work and couldn’t find it in the file I thought it was in. But upon closer investigation, I realized my memory of what the paper looked like was wrong, and it in fact was in the file I thought it was.
A few weeks ago I was looking for the extra ziplock vacuum bags we did not use when moving my daughter a year ago. They were not in the closet I thought I had placed them. Again, started looking in other locations until I reminded myself of my rule. Went back to the original closet, and there they were. They were in a box, and I was looking for them to be loose.
This method has worked for my neighbor who couldn’t find the sheets she always took on vacation. They weren’t in the closet she always stored them in. She had spent hours looking through the house. After I told her my experiences, she went back to the original closet, and found them under another set of sheets that hid them.
These make great entertaining stories, but might not work for you.
Have not read all of the posts in this thread, but consider checking the waste basket. Also, could be mixed in with other papers. Do you have a dog ?
I tend to find papers when I no longer need them, have worked around a missing document. DH used to refer to the gremlins who toyed with us. He joked you have to fight them at their own game, pretend, convinclingly, that you don’t care. Then they release the missing papers.
This is the story of my life… I do this way too often. It heartens me to know I’m not alone. (And the lost things always turn up in odd places. )
Paper does move if there is a good breeze.
I like to visualize the item and move from room to room until I find it. This usually triggers a memory of the ‘safe’ place I put the item
Lindagaf’s story reminded me about something that happened when our oldest was a toddler. The automatic lock to our car had been set up by the dealer/factory incorrectly. The locks on the door were supposed to automatically lock after starting the ignition and putting the car in gear but only if all the doors were closed. If a door was open, the doors were not supposed to lock. However, like I said, ours had been incorrectly installed. Dh was notorious for getting in the car, leaving the driver side door open, then getting out to go back into house and closing the door behind him…with all doors locked. Multiple occasions where he locked the keys in car with engine running (one while on vacation but I had thankfully brought the spare set and had them in my coat pocket).
A few years after we bought the car, the spare set went missing. We hadn’t seen them in over two years. One day we were headed to a family gathering. It was hot out. Dh started the car to put on the A/C to cool it down, then buckled our 2 y/o in her car seat, shut the door and boom, realized his error but all doors were locked. We called the cops, they came out but their device would not work to unlock the door. The fire dept came, no dice. We’d also called USAA who was sending roadside assistance but it was going to be too long. I was inside the house frantically looking for that many years’ missing set of keys while they all stood outside trying to keep our daughter entertained and figure out what to do. In my basement, I grabbed an old work purse I had used when commuting to my former job. There in the side pocket were the missing set of spare keys!
Crazy that it took a toddler locked in the car for me to finally find the spare keys. I hadn’t used the purse in over two years. After that incident I forced Dh to take the car back to the dealer to have the alarm system fixed so to the correct settings so the doors would no longer lock when the door was open.
Has the missing mail been found? I’ve definitely lost important papers that I put someplace “safe” so hopefully it will turn up soon!
If you go ahead and make your painful phone call two things will happen–it’ll be faster and the paper will re-appear out of the ether.
No missing mail yet.
The good news is that about 5 things that were problems have sorted themselves out in just the last 36 hours. So I am going to do one more sweep. We are both all most positive that it has not been trashed. H saw it next to The computer.
Love your responses. Thanks
If anyone’s a psychic, please tell me where I left my best bracelet.
Whatever your belief system is
St. Anthony has a great track record for finding things.
When I lose or misplace things, I eliminate from the search all areas of the house where I haven’t been in the intervening time and then look thoroughly in every spot where I have been. If it’s a piece of paper, I look in all piles of papers and try to touch every single item. Sometimes I shake them, to reduce the chances of things being stuck together. I look in the garbage and recycling. I look between and underneath cushions and under furniture.
Good luck!
Yes, I think back to the last time I saw it, and all activity in that area that might have moved/transferred/dislodged it, etc.
I haven’t gone back to reread the thread, but am assuming you looked under the computer. I usually find missing papers in a stack or place I’ve already looked through repeatedly. As noted above, I have a different picture in my mind of the missing item so I don’t recognize it when searching.
Also, if either of you have made any notes or lists or taken down phone messages – the kinds of things where you just grab the nearest paper – check those.
Another spot is the very back inside of a cabinet or drawer stack, where the paper item in the top drawer gets stuck and falls behind the drawer into the cabinetry below. Maybe check cabinets near the computer?
Good luck!
There was once a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode where someone accidentally learns that every moment of reality is being created second by second, then dismantled afterward. If something is missing, it’s because the workers creating that moment forget to put it in the right place. Then you find it later because the workers for that later moment placed it correctly.
This might be it…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Minutes - close to how I remembered!
Back in 1986, when I was anticipating returning to my job overseas after an extended furlough, I looked in my accordion file where I kept all my documents, including my KLM return ticket. Just checking that everything was okay. I could not locate the plane ticket!
Alarmed, I took everything out of the file and looked at the contents, piece by piece, shaking things out, over and over…no ticket. I had not removed the ticket from the file so it made no sense that it was missing. Finally I admitted defeat and contacted KLM which issued a new ticket free, but warned me that if the original ticket was found and used, I would be charged for it.
When the new ticket arrived I went to put it into my accordion file…and there was the “lost” ticket, plain as day.
I still can’t explain it.