Disappearing Act

One unfortunate Friday I lost my pen at work. Generally when I lose my pen, it turns up somewhere on my desk. This only happens after I have harbored very mean thoughts about someone who I am inevitably convinced stole my pen. This Friday though, I was certain that I must have done something with it. I looked all over my desk, under all my papers, under my keyboard, and I found nothing. I went back out to the copier and by the offices I had recently visited. I whined a little bit to my officemate over it. I suppose the loss of a pen at work doesn't sound like too big of a deal. And the thing is that it isn't. It's only that I bring my pens (Uniball Vision Elites!!) to work with me because I don't like the pens that are provided there. So I sort of wanted to find my pen.

By the end of the day, my pen still hadn't turned up. I cleaned off my desk for the evening, and it was still nowhere to be seen. I went home and forgot about it.

Later that evening, Rob Valentine and I decided to go to a movie. We were standing outside the theater, when we heard something hit the floor. I thought I dropped something - maybe my candy or a chapstick from my purse. I looked down...and there it was! The errant pen, right there on the floor in the movie theater. I can't figure out how it ended up there.

So you think maybe I placed the pen in my purse absent-mindedly while at work...nope. I wasn't even carrying the same purse at the movie theater that I had brought to work that day.

Your next theory? Maybe it was somehow on my clothes or in my pocket? Could be. The strange thing is that when I got home from work. I washed my car. So you would think if the pen were going to fall out of my pocket or come unclipped from wherever it was holding on, it would have done so while I was bending and reaching and standing and crawling around with my car washing. Or at least if it were in my pocket, I would have noticed. I mean, usually you can feel it if you crouch down with a chapstick in your pocket, and a pen is considerably longer.

So thank you pen people. Or whoever it was who returned my pen from the place that I somehow left it. I am quite pleased to have it back.