Lost and Found

As far back as I can remember, I have been a little absent-minded.   I remember when I was in junior high coming home from fishing in Pirot’s Pond with a baitfish still on the hook.  I put away my tackle box and stood the fishing rod … kelly still hanging on the hook … in the corner of the closet.  At that point, my Mom called, Buddy, come here a minute.  Off I went to see what she wanted, making a mental note to come back and get rid of the bait.   As so often happens, I lost my mental note until a week later, when Mom detected a putrid smell coming from my closet.  She was not happy.   Once I was driving, a favorite trick was locking the keys in the car … once, when I was in graduate school and late for a class, I locked the keys in with the car still running.  By the way do you know an ignisecond* is?  It is the instant of time between the time you close the car door and your brain screams, The keys are in the ignition !!!  For those of you of a certain age, you will know this is a sniglet.

It probably won’t surprise you then that in my seventies I quite regularly lose things (I actually consider them misplaced but Misplaced and Found isn’t as good a title as Lost and Found).  And it won’t surprise you either that my wife, Muri, gets tired of me asking her, Have you seen my keys? (phone? wallet? tablet? You get the idea).  She doesn’t lose things, you see … she’d tell you, That’s because I put them where they belong.  She’s right, of course.  In order to keep from annoying her by asking her to help me find things, I’ve enlisted a number of technologies.   First off, I have the Find My Device App on my phone and tablets.  By logging onto my Google account on one device, I can see the location of all my other devices on a map … and I can make any device play a sound so I can walk around the house and find it.   I will admit, the alarms are loud and annoying, but not as annoying to Muri as me asking for help.  Speaking of Find My Device, I once left my phone on top of my car as I pulled out of a store parking lot (probably my worst misplacement ever), only realizing it was gone when I got home.  Find My Device showed it was it was on or near 13400 W, a major nearby highway (Yes, that is how they name streets here in Utah.  Except you are supposed to call it 134 W.  Tell that to my GPS).  Sure enough, when I went back, there it was in the middle of the fast lane.  All it took was a daredevil dash during a short break in traffic to get it but it was fine.

Car keys still frequently elude me, so I’ve put a little device called Tile on my keychain and the Tile App on my phone.  The Tile App senses the Tile on the keyring using Blurtooth as long as it isn’t too far away (or as long as the battery in the tile doesn’t wear down, something that seems to happen fairly regularly).   The App on the phone tell me if my keys are nearby and, if they are not, where it saw them last.  It can also ring a chime on the Tile to help me track down my keys.  It works pretty well as long as you are sure to keep the Tile battery fresh.  So my four most often misplaced possessions are accounted for and I am contemplating buying a Tile for my wallet.  Then, I’ll be loss proof.  Unless, of course, I misplace my head, which my wife has suggested several times is a possibility.   I have a potential solution for that, too.   Do you think anyone will notice?

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Tags: feeling older, forgetfulness, humor, lost tiems

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