Lost And Found

My sister once told me a story about elves whose job it is to make sure that everything is right with the world. They paint pictures of everything that goes on every day, and when things go wrong, it is because the elves made a mistake. For example, you put a pair of socks into the washing machine, but when your laundry comes out of the dryer, there is only one sock. How does that happen? The elves forgot to paint the other sock. This could also explain finding a five dollar bill in your coat pocket when you have no recollection of putting it there.

When I flew to Michigan three weeks ago, I was wearing a green shirt with a v-neck and three-quarter sleeves under a warm wool sweater. I hadn't thought to wear the shirt since then, until last weekend, when I went looking in my closet and couldn't find it. I looked in my laundry basket, on the floor near the washing machine, under my bed, even inside that sweater, all to no avail. I asked Marla if I'd left it in Michigan, but she hadn't seen it either. I had just taken a bag of clothes to donate, so I figured it had somehow wound up in there and my shirt was gone forever.

I was bummed. The shirt was nothing special, but it was a nice color and looked good on me. I figured I'd go back to Kohl's, where I bought it, and get another one, but I was still bummed, because it had become one of my favorite shirts, and I hate to lose things.

Today, however, I was sitting in the chair in my bedroom and happened to look into my open closet and catch a glimpse of green. I don't have anything else in that shade of green, so I went over and looked, and I saw it. It was my shirt, hanging out the bottom of that wool sweater, the same wool sweater I had looked in at least twice before. It had somehow slipped off of the hanger (or had never been on it, I guess), but ended up stuck inside the sweater, out of my sight.

I guess I just didn't look far enough down into the sweater. Either that or the elves just remembered to paint it back in. Either way, I'm happy to have it back.