The Thin Line Between “Lost” and “Stolen”

For the last couple days we’ve been searching for our camera.  Unfortunately, for our search, this camera is a pretty small thing (kinda like cell phones and iPods, which come to think of it, get lost pretty often too – maybe we should go back to making things really huge or we could at least attach something bizarre to them like they do at nasty gas station bathrooms, it could be a miniature oar, or maybe a plastic donkey . . . whatever it is, you know that if you attached it to the small object in question you’d never lose it.  But just try jogging with an iPod attached to a rubber snake!  And if you do try, be sure you let me take your picture . . . which reminds me to get back to my camera story).  Having 4 small-ish kids means that we “lose” things pretty often, but those things usually aren’t very expensive or valuable, such as the the sugar, entire sticks of butter (true story), or our minds.  These are things we can lose and not feel too terrible about.  But our kinda-pricey digital camera is a different matter.  After a bit of searching I found myself reverting to the natural, though regrettable, guy-reaction:

Wife, . . . it’s your fault.

For some shocking reason this accusation didn’t really help our search much, but did ensure that I’d be apologizing later. 

After poking around and retracing our steps it became clear that something fairly sinister must be afoot.  (is that really a word?!  cuz typing it felt kinda funny . . . afoot, afoot, ahand, asternum, anose, ahangnail . . . oh yeah, back to the camera thing)  And when any sort of chicanery or malfeasance happens we know that the little people who live in our house are pretty bad at hiding the evidence (for instance we found the aforementioned half-eaten stick of butter in the middle of my son’s room . . . in broad daylight . . . melting)  So sure enough, a quick check of my 5-year-old daughter’s room revealed the camera in the top drawer of her desk.  I put it back where I found it and we asked her if she’d seen our camera anywhere.  Now it’s kinda troubling when the default answer is a bold-face lie, but that’s just what we got.  After a while we coaxed her into searching her own room.  She agreed to do it, but only if she could be alone.  That part was awesome.  We stood outside the door laughing.  It took her less than 10 seconds to find the camera that she supposedly didn’t know anything about.  Whoever says these little people are innocent . . . they must be childless.  As she handed over the thing she burst into tears, apparently succumbing to her own guilt, and finally sensing that the jig was up (whatever that idiom means).

So we’re all good now . . . well, at least we will be as soon as I find my phone that I’m sure the Mrs. HTF lost . . .