Lost And Found

Three years ago, I went on a trip and when I returned home, I couldn’t find a pair of tiny, gold earrings. Losing things is not my style---misplacing things---Yes! losing things---No! So naturally, I tore my house apart looking for those little suckers and still couldn’t find them. I searched for three years.

Yesterday, I opened my jewelry box and heard two little voices saying, “Here we are. Where the heck have you been?” (No. For you purists, I wasn’t hearing voices. It’s called, poetic license).

Author, Frances Rodman (not the basketball-playing friend of Kim Jong-un) said, “Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.” Rodman, you have a screw loose! I don’t have to lose anything to appreciate what I have. Besides, Frances didn’t mention the headache, indigestion and accompanying ulcer that would accompany the stress of losing everything.

In life, tangible things are not the only items that can be misplaced. There is such a thing as misplaced anger, like when someone shoots his mouth off at the person delivering unwelcome news. An old Korean proverb says, “If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” That’s why Kim would rather shoot his uncle. He would have been better off listening to Mark Twain who suggested, “When angry count to four. When very angry swear.” But, maybe that doesn’t translate well into Korean.

Since anger is such a corrosive emotion, I suggest that before someone gives another person a piece of her mind, she should check to see if she has enough mind left-over when she is finished.

There is also such a thing as misplaced judgment. Again, Mark Twain gives a good example, “It’s not good sportsmanship to pick up golf balls when they are still rolling.” Metaphorically speaking, going off a trail in an unfamiliar forest is not a good idea. That’s when Albert Einstein reminds us, “Stand still. The trees and the bush behind you are not lost.”

My favorites of the misplaced are misplaced modifiers such as:

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.” (Groucho Marx).

But, before I lead you too far astray of the subject at hand, “the misplacement of tangible things,” I can offer a sure fire solution; the easiest way to find something you have misplaced is to buy a replacement.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Lost time is never found.”… Benjamin Franklin)