Lost

Dear Sir has an aversion to lost and/or broken things. You hate to tell him you lost anything because he will get all depressed and pretty soon you wish you were dead or buried alive somewhere because the man can not stop talking about it, ceaselessly shaking his head, making sounds behind his sci-fi book.

The Oldest came home Saturday evening, just before dark, about to hop in the bathroom. "Where are your glasses?" Dear Sir said.

The Oldest grabbed at his neck, wide-eyed and scared out of his mind. "Uh, " he managed.

"Where did they go?" I asked.

I could tell. He lost them.

Dear Sir almost popped.

I ran over to the Oldest and lead him downstairs. "We will find them right now, let's go," I said.

We went to the house by the cul-de-sac and searched endlessly until it was too dark to see. Crap.

Let's just say Dear Sir was fit to be tied, but remained behind his book as I got a flashlight and searched the stinking driveway.

You get to the point where if someone hates lost things as much as they do, you have to cope somehow and be at peace with the lost thing because the other is upset enough about it for the both of you.

You see, in my house, it is never if momma ain't happy ain't nobody happy. It is the other way around. If I ain't happy, life commences, people still laugh and have fun, and I am alone in my wretchedness. And you see, it is totally my fault that no one is happy when Dear Sir is faced with a lost item. I immediately go into Emergency Code Red mode and don't stop until I fix a situation. You see, I am a fixer.

I gave up once I noticed that the flashlight was not beaming enough light to see under the vehicles. I got the kids in bed and I sat down to read.

After church yesterday the search began again. Dear Sir sent the boys out to find the glasses at that house where the boy lost them and they came back defeated after four hours of searching a huge lawn. My son's feet were blackened with soil and he put them on my couch, drink in hand, panting. I felt bad for him. "Wanna go to the pool?" I asked.

"I don't know. I am really wiped out," was all he could manage.

I prompted him to get those feet off the couch and get his rear end up the steps to wash them. He eventually got his shorts on and I took them all to the pool. Dear Sir worked on my band's poster for the concert this fall, and the little blurb for the site. He also read.

You know, I can't stand lost things either. I see it as a challenge so I search and search until I find it. I knew that my Oldest was never going to find those glasses because of this reason: he is male. I don't want to knock men, but they can't find anything. Just the other day:

"Where's the toothpaste! It has vanished!" yelps the Oldest. He was standing in the bathroom, tooth brush in hand.

"Where could the toothpaste have gone, Rach?" Dear Sir said from behind his book.

"Nowhere. It is sitting on the counter in the bathroom, last time I saw it."

"It couldn't be...it..."

I walked over there and there the toothpaste was right smack on the freaking COUNTER, in plain sight.

"How could I have missed that!?" yelped the Oldest, completely incredulous.

Easy, you are a male. Males see the hot dog, but never the ketchup. Males see the woman, but never the clothes. Males see the forest, but never the trees.

When in need of a search party, the people to send out should be women or girls. The first thing that should have happened was to send out the Girl and me to find those spectacles.

Last night the doorbell rang at 8:30. Dear Sir always scowls when the phone rings or the doorbell rings. He jumped from behind his book. "What the heck?!" he said.

I ran down to see what was up. The Oldest ran down too, seeing kids from his window in the dusk.

A group of mainly girls were at the door and a couple of boys. "We found your glasses," they said.

The girl in the group found the glasses, in the grass, by the volley ball net, in the yard that my boys had scaled up and down for four hours. And she found them in nothing flat because I saw her at the pool when we were there and we left before her. The girl probably saw a little light gleaming in the dark and picked them up, with her towel around her waist, knowing full well that they were the famous missing glasses.

Man, am I glad that drama is over. I have learned my lesson. Never send boys. Send girls. They find stuff.