Don’t laugh at me but I’ve misplaced an entire pair of pants.
Oh, go ahead and laugh. May as well.
I don’t know how I do this. I lose everything. I misplace my keys every time I set them down. I resisted the necessity of a purse for nearly 30 years because it’s much harder to mislay a pocket. I lose my cup of tea on a daily basis and thank god my cellphone rings or it would quite literally be a lost cause.
My pants, though, I can generally keep track of.
I assure you that I’m not in the habit of going out of the house with my pants on and returning without them, but even still, had that occasioned to happen recently, I should think that I would recall the instance. I was embarrassed to ask after them in the lost-and-found at the dance studio and was relieved when the receptionist produced several pair of jeans. None of them were mine but it’s some measure of relief to know that I’m not the only one who does this.
I’ve checked the laundry baskets, under the bed, in bags and in hampers, my husband’s drawers and even my son’s. They’re not to be found in the washing machine or dryer. I looked in the linen closet. I looked in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. It wouldn’t be the first time I had put something strange in there, though pants would be the strangest.
Last week I’m quite sure I had four pairs of jeans that fit me. Now one is distinctly missing. It’s not like them to wander off without me so I have only one hope left: the peanut butter factor.
What? You don’t have the peanut butter factor in your house? Of course you do. Everyone does. Let me explain. I formed this theory in high school. (Yes, Chezza, theory, not hypothesis; an extremely well-tested theory.) So you’re looking for the peanut butter.
“Hey, Mom! Where’s the peanut butter?”
“It’s in the fridge on the middle shelf on the right.”
You’re standing in front of the fridge with the door open. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is.”
“I’m in the fridge. It’s not here.”
Mom approaches. She appears over your shoulder and as she reaches her hand into the fridge, some mysterious force that says that you were wrong the instant you dared to contradict the All-Knowing, All-Powerful Mom makes the peanut butter jar materialize just under her fingertips before your eyes so when she hands it to you with that you-must-be-kidding-me look, you can only gawk back with your jaw on the floor.
“It wasn’t there a minute ago.”
“Of course not, dear.”
The peanut butter factor. Oh, that peanut butter factor, you’re saying now. Yeah, we have that. Of course you do.
Let me tell you something about becoming a mom. You can instantly find anything that belongs to anyone in your household, except your stuff. You can find a scrap of paper of your husband’s that fluttered to the floor in the corner behind the dresser three weeks ago. You have a mental picture of where it is as soon as he mentions it. But your car keys? Fat chance. Who writes these rules and how to find them to shoot them?
So I’m out of ideas. My only hope is that my pants are invisible somewhere around the house.
Mom? You want to come over for dinner?