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Beware of ‘safe places’

We’ve all done it. Just go ahead and admit it. We all look at something and decide due to its level of importance and the point in the future at which you will want to locate it, you should put it somewhere safe.

We’ve all done it. Just go ahead and admit it.

We all look at something and decide due to its level of importance and the point in the future at which you will want to locate it, you should put it somewhere safe.

Famous last words, that’s what those are.

Hubby, a volunteer football coach, began preparing for the upcoming spring camp recently. His preparations included looking in vain for part of his paperwork.

I don’t actually know what it is. I also don’t know where it is.

We have enough places at home to stash things away and forget where they are.

He also has an office at work and he mumbled about the locker room.

Then this morning one of my Facebook friends, likely on the verge of panic, was searching for her T-4 slips.

Note that I am writing this column on April 28.

She knows she put them somewhere safe. Uh oh.

The phrase “putting something somewhere safe” could instead by worded “misplacing something indefinitely.”

Most people’s safe places protect items from threats ranging from random floods, children’s crayons, locust invasions, pets (teeth, horfed up hairballs) to windstorms.

Unfortunately, these safe places also protect these important items from the finder.

I’ve considered writing down where I stash away things like Christmas presents I bought early or certain items of paperwork.

I suspect I would put the piece of paper I wrote the location on in a safe place and promptly forget where.

At least then I’d have two things to look for.

Part of the problem in our house is that I have decreed that neither the kitchen counter nor the table shall serve as storage for anything with a shelf life of more than about three days.

After that it is expected to go back to the school, usually with a signature and a cheque attached, into the garbage or recycling or perhaps to the office to be filed properly and permanently.

This is what forces Hubby to seek a “safe” place to put his important items for fear I will send them to school with one of the children.

Another part of the problem is that many of these items, including football paperwork, Christmas presents and T-4s are only needed once or maybe twice a year.

This leaves one with too much time to completely forget anything beyond vague memories that you once had it and thought about storing it “safely.”

Identifying one “safe” spot for all things wouldn’t work. We’d forget where it was.

The good thing about these situations is that I only have to think, and think and think, about where I might have put the darn thing I’m looking for.

This is in sharp contrast to when the Scissor Ghost that inhabits my Mother’s house and sometimes vacations here, takes things.

The Scissor Ghost, who may actually never have left Mom’s and was simply confused with our youngest, takes things out from under your nose.

You haven’t put them anywhere safe or otherwise.

And suddenly they are gone. Just as suddenly, when you stop searching and questioning your sanity, they reappear.

They never reappear under something or near where you were looking. They are always exactly where you looked which is exactly where you knew they should be. Just last week the Scissor Ghost took Mom’s big bonger, also known as one of the pipes for her really big windchimes which she was re-assembling after winter ended the first time.

The next day it was right where she knew it should have been all along, but wasn’t.

Yes, I’d rather try to think like myself than outsmart a clearly clever poltergeist any day of the week.

At least the Scissor Ghost returned the bonger. Not so sure the fate of my friend’s T-4 or Hubby’s football whatever.

Now I will leave you to ponder where your ‘safe’ storage place is, and what unknown treasures it may hold.

Krista Waters is a freelance writer from the Caroline area.