I’m such a loser. Now, where’s the damn dog?
WE ALL have phrases or expressions we overuse. My own two are A: ‘Now, where did I put it?’ and B: ‘Someone must have stolen it.’
Generally speaking, I mutter B precisely two minutes after first blurting out A. I then continue to say one or the other until my wife is driven to join in the search. Like many men, I am highly skilled in the art of losing things, but prefer to outsource the recovery process.
When people call me a loser, they are simply telling the truth. It’s nice to know I’m not alone. At St John’s Church in Redhill, Surrey, last weekend, a best man called Matt Aubrey managed to lose his brother Lewis’s wedding ring.
‘Everything had been going so well. The bride and groom were there on time, the weather was lovely, the church was beautiful,’ reported a bridesmaid blessed with the name of Kelly Love.
‘ The vicar had just started the service when all of a sudden I heard this “ping”. The vicar turned to Matt and said: “Was that the ring?”
‘Matt said: “Yes.” At that point all eyes turned to the floor.’
Before long, the groom and his best man were scrabbling around on their hands and knees, 20 wedding guests had joined in the hunt, and the grates near the altar had all been uprooted.
If it had been me, I would by now have moved onto Stage 2, shouting: ‘Someone must have stolen it!’ before going on to frisk my future parents-in-law.
But, luckily, the bride and groom had more patience. They simply borrowed the bride’s mother’s wedding ring, and went ahead with the service.
A few hours later, the vicar managed to find the lost ring in a tiny crack beneath the step up to the altar, rushed with it to the reception and, amid much cheering, performed the ‘ With this ring . . .’ part of the service all over again.
Which goes to show that nothing is ever really lost: it’s just that our impatience outpaces our will to keep looking.
Personally, I tend to give up after three minutes, unless the lost item is a pet, in which case I spend a little longer, or unless the pet is a hamster, in which case I keep it to two minutes.
I once managed to lose our dog without him going anywhere. ‘Now where did I put him?’ was my first thought, followed by: ‘ Someone must have stolen him.’
After half an hour of calling his name, I was reminded by my wife that I had taken him shopping. Retracing my footsteps, I found him tied to the railings outside our local Co-op. On another occasion, after furiously scouring the streets, I found him in the back of our car.
Needless to say, the car itself once went missing. Returning from holiday to Gatwick Airport, I was clever enough to remember that I had parked it somewhere nearby, but not clever enough to remember where. But at least I was able to congratulate myself on remembering that the car was either black or dark blue.
Consequently, it took me only three-quarters of an hour of striding up and down all the different car park zones, muttering ‘Now where did I put it?’ and ‘Someone must have stolen it’ to myself, before I found it, sitting stock-still where I had left it.
As life goes on, we accrue more and more loseable objects. Providence dictates that objects that are too large to lose, such as houses, always come with tiny little keys, specially designed to give you the slip.
Paradoxically, there are tens of unattached keys in our kitchen drawer — big keys, little keys, rusty keys, shiny keys — each without its accompanying object.
This suggests that it is easier to lose a possession than to lose its key, even though, logically, the possession must be larger than the key. My own top ten loseable things are: 1: Pens and pencils; 2: Spectacles; 3: TV remote control; 4: Railway tickets; 5: Credit cards; 6: Socks; 7: Dog lead; 8: Hats (I have never managed to keep hold of a hat for more than two months); 9: Shoes; 10: Corkscrew.
KRIS Kristofferson sang: ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’ He had clearly never worn specs, and had a full head of hair. One of the oddities of human beings is that however much we hate looking for things, we find ourselves drawn to objects we are bound to lose. Why else play golf?
According to Andrew Martin’s fascinating new book Underground Overground, 200,000 items were lost on the London Tube last year. In the past few months, the Tube’s lost property office has taken delivery of a traffic lollipop sign, a barrister’s wig, two- and- a- half hundredweight of currants and sultanas, and a park bench.
One day, no doubt, they will take delivery of me. Whether or not anyone will come to claim me is, of course, another matter entirely.
c.brown@dailymail.co.uk