Gone Missing

I can't find my Roomba.

Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash

Friends,

I am writing today with a somewhat off-topic post, but one I felt I needed to share with you all. You see, I seem to have an epidemic of missing things, household items and personal effects that keep disappearing from my home.

Maybe I have a Nisse, one of those Scandinavian folklore gnomes who lives in the invisible creases of my home, sneaking off with things and moving them around behind my back, snickering all the while. Yes, I think it must definitely be a Nisse, not my frazzled 54-year-old brain. But I am a bit distraught by these disappearances. If you happen upon any of my missing items, listed and described below, please reach out. 

My Roomba.

It’s been a few days, and honestly I thought it would come back, but it has not. I remember turning it on and watching it sweetly beep to life and begin its whisking and whirring journey across the cold tile of the kitchen, and onto the blond wood planks of the living room floor, magically vanishing all the dust bunnies and various crumbs of my life, and that was the last I saw of it. I thought I’d treated it well; charged it when it was depleted, returned it to home base when it was stuck or disoriented, but I have clearly failed my Roomba, and it has left me. Now I must use a broom! A broom, people.  

My good running socks. 

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash

I purchased several pairs of these luxurious Balega running socks to support my weary feet while training for marathons the past couple of years. They are the best: soft and cushiony, like pillows, protecting my toes and heels, swaddling my feet in comfort as I pounded out miles and miles over concrete sidewalks.

I washed them in cold water. I tucked them into snug rolls in the sock bin. And yet they insisted on separating, and then they divorced completely! Now I have a bin of single socks. Sure, I re-couple them as mismatched pairs, but why? Why could they not stay together? Work things out.

Mind you, the ratty pairs from Old Navy, with pinky-sized holes in the toe box and worn through soles are still together. They don’t divorce. If they can stay together, why can’t you?

My eyeglasses.

Photo by K8 on Unsplash

I wear them so infrequently, they should stay where I leave them and not wander off. I put them on in the morning when I wake up, and at night when I take out my contacts and put the kids to bed, feed the cat, run through the never-ending list of things I should have done but didn’t, and tuck myself in to escape into my latest book. Inevitably they come off my face, sometimes even before I pass out, and then by morning they’ve vanished. I feel like Velma from Scooby Doo: without my glasses on, it’s hard to find them. Eventually they turn up, under the bed, inside a pillow case, down in the kitchen, folded neatly on my desk. It’s always somewhere different and surprising. They like to keep me on my toes. 

My coffee cup.

Photo by Jessica Lewis on Unsplash

My coffee mug is so shifty. Always moving from one location to another, without any notice at all. I leave it on the counter while making the kids’ lunches, and turn around and it’s gone. Sometimes I find it lollygagging by the bathroom sink. I’m perplexed. How this happens I’ll never know. I need more coffee.

Other Missing Miscellany

There are many more items that have vanished, too many really to list here, but I’ll share a few more so you have an idea of how busy my house Nisse must be. All of my bookmarks are gone. I put them in the books! Where do they go? Whose books have they slid into instead of mine?

Also, every single lid that might be able to top the Tupperware in the jumble drawer I’ve assigned them to. I have bottoms without tops, and tops without bottoms. Those who manage to maintain both the Tupperware lid and its matching container are no doubt witches, kitchen sorcerers with special powers. I do not have such supernatural abilities.

And let’s not even discuss my phone. I haven’t seen that in weeks.