Losin It!!

by Shannon Jarvies

Well, we've done it again.  My family can't seem to remember the last 

place we put the remote control to our stereo.  You might think this

is unimportant and could care less whether or not we have to leave the

comfort of our chairs in order to have a comfortable conversation during

a commercial. And no, we've tried hiring our children to do this job,

but we can't afford thier salaries.  So for our family this is a 

tragedy in the making. You see, this remote controls the volume of 

not only our stereo, but our TV as well.  For some reason, awhile back

our TV decided that it was no longer speaking to us, so we had to run sound

through our stereo.

It's a common problem in our family.  No, I'm not talking about losing

the desire to spew forth sound.  That, I'm afraid, will never be a problem

in this household.  What I'm talking about is losing things.  It seems

as though not an hour has past since Christmas that one of my kids 

wasn't inquiring about a misplaced toy or desperately needed part to

a toy that without this thing-a-ma-jig, the toy would not work.  How

am I supposed to know? I reply.  They can't seem to understand that

even though I do have eyes in the back of my head, they aren't used

for watching toys as they pick themselves up and hide under the bed.

No, those eyes are only used for watching out for children who misbehave.

My husband also seems to think that I know the whereabouts of his

misplaced belongings.  Yes, I'm the primary housecleaner and if I

find it, I try to put it in a place that I'm sure to remember when

my husband comes looking for it.  Important papers are filed for 

future reference.  But my husband has a hard time with my filing

system.  Is Sam Jones's contract under "S" for Sam, "J" for Jones

or "C" for contracts? he asks.  Or is it in File 13?  He asks me

that one every time because I have been known to throw important,

dust covered items in the trash.  It seems as though his 

"prized belongings" that have been sitting on the microve for six 

months are useless to him until they are discarded.

Now that the kids are out of school, I've decided that the only 

way we are going to recover all of the missing toys

is to clean their rooms.  We started this morning, and to my 

surprise the kids were actually enthused about cleaning and the

more toys, parts, and money they found, the more excited they

became.  They were starting to believe what I had told them all

along.  "It's probably in your room.  You'll just have to pick

up a few things to find it".

Despite the discovery of great and forgotten treasures and three

loads of laundry, we did not run across our remote.  It must be

in the living room somewhere.  Even though I'm sure we covered

that area thoroughly, there must be one place that we've over-

looked.  Or could it possibly be in File 13?