Christopher Mackay's Blog

I’ve always had the most amazing ability to lose things.

I once lost my wallet for three days — and it was gone for two days before I noticed. It turned up at a restaurant, where the waitress had found it and turned it in.

I once lost my watch. A few months later, I lost its replacement. I put off buying another, expecting it would show up, but it didn’t, so I replaced it, too.

A year later, I found the first missing watch in the pocket of a jacket at a friend’s house .

A couple of months after that, I was cleaning the couch, and found my second missing watch deep in the crevice between the back and the seat, bringing my current watch count up to three.

Detecting a pattern here?

A few weeks ago I was helping a friend adjust the seat on his new bicycle in front of my house.

A week later, I was looking for a screwdriver, and couldn’t find my toolbox anywhere. There are bigger toolboxes, but it’s not so small that you could walk into a room and not see it, especially if you were actually looking for it.

After searching every room in the house — twice — I reached the sad conclusion that someone had walked off with my toolbox full of tools after I’d helped my friend with his bike.

The thought of buying all new tools, while attractive at the reptilian-brain/shiny-new-stuff level, seemed premature given my history, so I resisted.

Sure enough, the toolbox turned up, under the sink in the basement, right where I now remember putting it.

By the way, has anyone seen my wallet…?