Last night I realized that one of my favorite earrings is missing. It so happens that I only wear one of the earrings at a time, because Keith Richards is still my fashion muse. It’s a long safety pin earring and it would look stupid to wear one in each ear.
Nevertheless, I want that missing earring! Where did it go? Why is it missing? Who would take it, besides Keith Richards?
I’ve looked everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It’s not with my other jewelry and it’s not in that little tray in the bathroom where I sometimes put my earrings. When I looked in the tray for the third or fourth time, I recalled the story in The Boy Who couldn’t stop Washing about a woman who slashed her couches in a manic search for a lost hairbrush or something. I don’t want to be her. But I feel the seeds.
Saint Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, but as we all know, he never helps. You can pray your ass off but he won’t return your lost thing. I can’t even count the socks he has failed to return.
Remember when I lost my gold watch? Still missing. I have a hunch that it was stolen by a crazy Chinese nurse, but that’s a whole story on its own. This is about the earring.
I remember buying the earrings at Macy’s, where my purchase was rung up by a tired elderly black woman who was missing a critical tooth and couldn’t calculate the 20% sale discount. I bought the earrings at full price rather than give her more stress.
If I practice The Secret, will my earring manifest itself? Does Saint Anthony know about The Secret?
When I chose the image above from a rudimentary google search, I was startled by its projected violence. Can everyone see that he’s about to throw that baby into a river or cut it in half on that table? It’s so obvious! Maybe god told him to sacrifice the baby a la Abraham and Isaac, or maybe Saint Anthony is just nuts.
Maybe he’s nuts because he can’t find the lost things and he finally snapped, like the hairbrush lady with OCD.
Questions or advice, anyone?
Have you checked your other ear?
Check your sweaters. My cashmere seems to eat earrings
Perhaps it flew off in a moment of passion, check under the bed…jacket pockets…purses…knicker drawer…bedside drawer?
Check your hair. I know, long shot, but it’s so long and thick, you just never know 😉
St Anthony never fails me.
The prayer is:
St Anthony St Anthony, full of Grace
Please let Sister Wolf find her earring’s Hiding Place.
Good Luck.
Ha! I have been praying to St. Anthony since childhood, and usually he comes through in a pinch. HOWEVER, my sister lost my mom’s high school class ring TWICE in 2 different tornados that swept her house away (8 years apart) found that damn ring both times, and then she gives it to me and yep, lost forever. And a few years back on a trip to Padua (home of St. Anthony’s basilica) I lost my travel journal, everything I ate, bought saw and studied on this trip was gone. It was devastating for a writer…all my notes, and only an hour after praying on bended knee there. It never did appear….
Since you knew you would only use one of the earrings did you stash the extra one somewhere else other then the normal place?
I always try to picture when I last used it or worn it when I can’t find something. Follow that thread in your mind and think where you would have been when you removed it. This method has been much more successful then the usual random looking. Good luck.
“missing a critical tooth…” ahhhhh, I love you.
Have you checked inside the couch? Like literally on the inside? Things used to go missing all the time around here and one day I removed all of the cushions on the sofa so I could clean and there was a hole. Upon further inspection I found 5 missing pacifiers, and a lot of other things.
I often lose things and I always say the fairies took whatever I lost. They often return the item later in the same place I searched 87 times, they just needed it more than I did. Maybe a fairy took your earring and is wearing it to a fabulous party and will return it to you after the fun is over. Of course fairy time isn’t the same as human time, so you may have to be patient.
It’s sitting in that dank spot between the car door and driver’s seat. You know the spot, bread crumbs, some hair, a chewing gum wrapper. It’s just out of sight but if you rummage around you’ll find it.
At least, that’s where I always find my lost earrings…
This will happen more and more as you get older. Soon you’ll start finding things in your home that you don’t remember at all. I’ll let you know what comes after that as I experience it.
I always find things, even after a long search.You need to look in your pockets,in your clothes: jeans,pants. You need to look in your handbags one by one. In the bedrooms, check the drawers,maybe you removed it beforegoing to sleep.
Now, think about a place where an earring is unusual: KITCHEN, BASEMENT,LAUNDRY ROOM…Now I never thought about the car like EH suggested but it’s possible because I found my lipstick there once.
I am sure you will find it. Usually, we don’t findthings because we search in a place vaguely with precipitation and move on to the next.You need to start all over,it’s there and you missed it. Don’t rush take adeepbreath and look one by one.Momused to say that the thing you are looking for is looking at you lol
sister wolf- i believe these are all distractions from our core issue which is of course grief. since anger and sadness is all consuming we lose things , eat things,make things, watch things,do things that take us away for a moment, me im an ocd cleaner. godammit im furious
from my heart
mbp
Yes. That earring probably fell off your bathroom counter, bounced and slid and is now in MY bathroom.
It seems every time I drop something small or tiny like an earring, and I dropped it in the bathroom and the only logical place it could possibly be would be IN THE BATHROOM where it supposedly fell, I will find that flipping earring under MY BED WHERE THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL IT COULD HAVE LANDED, BOUNCED AND SLID TO ANOTHER ROOM! It always pisses me off.
Debbie – Kindly send my earring by priority mail.
Why do you always find things in the second to the last place you look? (..I’m very thorough..)
Have a look in your washing machine. I recovered a pair of pearl stud earrings just this evening, found inside the rubber seal of my front loader. (I noticed one gleaming in the damp rubber seal as I violently shovelled another load of laundry in.)
They had been missing almost a week. Difference is, I didn’t care that they were missing. (They weren’t exactly Chanel pearls.) St Anthony seems to favour those who of us who act cooly indifferent to the lostness of the lost thing.
I can’t help but feel that YOU are St. Anthony’s fashion muse and he is rocking that earring right now. He has the watch too, that fucker. I just know it.
It must be in the “safe place” where I always put things that are never found again.
I feel I am about to walk dangerously into Sister Wolf’s den but…
Why do you always state the races of the people in your stories? Look, before you get angry I don’t think you are a racist or a bigot. But I think it’s unusual especially when it’s followed by a negative description. Are you trying to just paint the picture? Cause if that is the case, then fair enough. You are a fantastic writer and maybe it’s your style. I have been known to be overly P.C. but I just cringe a little when I read it.
EricaE – Exactly, I am trying to paint the picture. But I’m disturbed by the idea that when I describe race or ethnicity, it’s always negative! I’m going to have a look and a think. I’m glad you brought this up.
Just to point out that the baby he is holding is Jesus, so no, he’s not about to cut him in two on the table. xx