JOIN USHow nice it would be if we could lay hands on things like scissors, stapler, pen, pencil or felt pen when we wanted them! It would be easy enough if people believed that there is a place for everything and every thing is in its place. I am one of the few believers of this in our family. Largely, not only do the others don’t believe in it but they ridicule me for practising it! Yet, should they need anything, they approach me because I have a pencil case with all stationery and essential items!
Take for instance, the nail-cutter. Someone takes it, wanders upstairs and leaves it somewhere there. And when I want to use it , it just cannot be found. “I left it here. Where could it have gone?” is a question often asked. Surely, no thief is going to purloin something as paltry as a nail-cutter!
When I can’t find something, I look for it in all the unlikely places till I find it. Nine times out of ten, I find it. “Don’t blow yourself into a frazzle over it. Let it go. We can always get another. It is not a life and death matter,” I am told. So we end up having duplicates and triplicates of things — none of which can be found when we want it!
Once, a relative left the keys in my sister’s house. How were we to get in? The duplicates were inside the house. So we had to go back for them. Given the traffic snarls in Bengaluru, it was a Herculean effort, to say the least. Ever since, I take charge of the keys. Once, the sickle the gardener uses got misplaced. I hunted high and low for it but couldn’t find it. The person who had misplaced it grumbled about how he would not know any peace till it was found. He got a new one.
A month or so later, I was sorting out the newspapers for the rag picker when out fell the elusive sickle! The person had done some gardening, cleaned the sickle and put it on the stack of newspapers and forgotten all about it! Didn’t he look sheepish when I pointed it out to him! He is quite capable of telling me I planted it to prove his carelessness! Offence , you see, is the best form of defence in his case.My help has many times retrieved currency from trouser pockets. The male wearer forgets to check them before giving the garment for wash. Just as well I have a trustworthy help! And because of this one over-riding quality, I have to put up with a lot of her demands.
And there was the time when another family member’s motorcycle key could not be found. A thorough search proved fruitless. Even my handbag was emptied, though for the life of me I could not understand how it could have made its way to the innermost recesses of my bag. An auto or cab was unavailable which only increased his ire. A search revealed the key on a window sill outside! Had it disappeared, it would have been another story. And why do I have a container for keys?