May 28th, 2019

I thought I lost this over the weekend and I was Very Upset!

It was one of a pair of earrings that Tim bought for me on my 50th birthday.  For whatever strange reason, the only birthday that every bothered me at all was that one.  The year I turned 50 for the first time I realized that I was getting older.  It was sobering. And a little depressing.  I walked around for weeks thinking to myself, "Oh My God, I'm half a century!"  In an effort to cheer me up I suspect, Tim bought these lovely delicate diamond earrings for me.  So they were especially significant.  Important. Sentimentally invaluable.

I actually misplaced both of them earlier in the week and after an exhaustive search through the house assumed that perhaps they had vanished outside somewhere.  Which meant that they were gone for good.  I'm all over the place outside.  Not just in our own yard but all over the island; on the beach, at the neighbors, at Pilates Class, in the Library, the museum, the grocery store.  Just the fact that I walk nearly everywhere I go meant limitless possibilities.  I was angry with myself for being so careless with something I cared for so much and just so sad.

I found the first one by accident.  We were on the sofa in the family room watching TV Saturday night.  I dropped something on the floor, a pretzel maybe, and reached down to pick it up.  I couldn't see where it went.  So I got down on hands in knees peering under the ottoman and the sofa.  I even got out the flashlight to see into the dark recesses.  Aha!  A glint of light, a tiny flash.  There it was!  Huzzah!  I lay down flat on the carpet, snaked my arm under the sofa, retrieved it and stood up, one tiny earring held forth triumphantly!  Taadaa!

Meanwhile poor Tim was trying to watch his show.  But he put it on pause because he is a very nice man.  I explained what happened and dropped back to the floor with the flashlight to resume my search.  If one was on the floor doesn't it logically follow that the other one would be too?  Nothin'. Ratz.

So like a crazy person,  I tore apart the furniture moving pillows, feeling down inside places that couldn't be taken apart with no results. Dang.  So we started moving furniture.  One large ottoman, two heavy side tables, both parts of the sectional sofa got shifted to the other side of the room while I searched.  I found an old petrified potato chip, a few stray pieces of popcorn,  several dustbunnies and other flotsam but no earrings.  

So that the energy spent moving furniture wasn't wasted I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and went to work.  As we moved the furniture back in place it dawned on me that I had vacuumed at least twice (obviously without moving furniture) since I lost the earrings in the first place.  Oh my!  I wondered if I accidentally vacuumed them up?  I eyed my vacuum cleaner suspiciously.

The vacuum and I went to the utility room.  Armed with a garbage bag, scissors and a double layer of newspapers on the floor for protection, I cut open the vacuum cleaner bag.  Ooof!  Nasty work there.  I thought I was going to choke to death on the dust and dirt and sand and masses of MY hair in that bag.   Gauging by the amount of my hair in the vaccum bag, I should be bald.  I'm not but I looked as if I could have woven myself a nice wig.  

Meanwhile, all of the coughing and choking and sifting through dirt was to no avail.  No earring found.  Crappola.  The only thing worse than having lost both earrings is having found just one.  What do you do with One Lone Earring?  It goes without nothing else.  They come in pairs for a reason!

So I decided to keep the one lone earring for sentimental reasons.  And as I set about to put it in my earring case, I dropped the darned thing.  Bumble fingers!  Back to the floor I went,  this time looking under the bed and bedside table where I found, not one earrings but two!  Hurrah hurrah!  It was an earrings miracle!~

How on earth I lost one in the family room and the other in the bedroom I will never know. But there they both were.  And now they are safe in their little case. 

I am now left wondering if I will ever be brave enough to wear them again.