Pajiba

Two Septembers ago I lost my driver's license (physically, not legally). I don't drive at school so I don't really need it that often, but something was coming up that I don't remember and I needed a legal ID for it.
My passport was at home, two states away, and I have way too much bad luck to risk having that sucker mailed. I wasn't 21 yet so I couldn't see the appeal of stealing it, and campus police didn't have it among their stack of lost ID's. I'm also incredibly messy, so when I tore my room apart looking for it and had no luck, I figured it must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere. Resigning myself to defeat, I got a replacement, in which they made my picture redder (I'm already a pretty ruddy-cheeked Irish girl, so this sucked), shrunk me an inch and removed my organ donor status. I am convinced this was out of spite.

Flash forward to May of last year and I was packing up and moving out of my room. When I was taking my clothes off of their hangers, I came across a summer dress that I like, but I don't really wear it that much. It also has pockets. In one of those pockets, I found my old, slightly bent, taller, organ donating, all around more attractive license.
I wore that dress ONCE that school year. That one time, I happened to put my ID in it and didn't touch it again for eight months. Damn pockets. Why couldn't I have just forgotten a twenty in there?

My virginity.

I have a precious little teddy bear--one of the only toys I kept from childhood (we moved a lot when I was growing up and then I moved a lot as an adult as well). I don't know why he was special or why he was kept him--he's a very plain little brown thing with a T-shirt that says "God loves you." (Yep, it's that cheesy.) I took it with me when we lived in Europe for a while and my baby would play with it sometimes. We took it on a trip to Wales. One day we left the little cottage we were staying in to go exploring and I realized later I'd left the little bear sitting on the roof of the car as I'd strapped the baby in. We didn't realize that until we were miles away and looking to give it to the baby. I was sure it was gone forever and I was pretty tearful (in retrospect why was I letting the baby play with it anyway?) On top of that the hubby was grumpy with me for being a nitwit and leaving it on the roof. We found it two days later on the side of the road and he was still in fine shape. Yay for the little Christian bear!

I've got nothing, but I love your mittens.

Also, I love the mittens too.

I've NEVER been the type of person who loses things but after getting my masters in social work in 2007 and a divorce in 2008, I've become a bit scatterbrained when it comes to those types of things. I'm misplace my keys, my wallet, my bag, ipod, you name it. I don't have a good story personally but my cousin had an amazing experience. She has a habit of taking off her wedding rings in the car while she puts on lotion (no, not the safest thing to do). She did so in a parking lot of a bank, placed them on her lap and forgot to put them back on before she got out of the car. 8 hours later, she realized what she had done and went back to the bank. She luckily found her diamond ring in the parking lot.

PS
Your mittens rock!!

i got nothing. it's been said before but that mitten rocks!

I, too, got nothing. superasente made my day, though.

I used to wear a ring on my right hand: a silver band signifying membership in a professional organisation called OACETT (the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists). On two separate occasions, I lost the ring and then re-found it in a jeans pocket after doing a load of laundry. Another time I dropped it in my bathroom toilet while flushing. At the time I figured it was gone for good, but a few weeks later I figured a piece of heavy metal would probably not get too far with only the movement of water. Sure enough, I reached into the bowl and retrieved it from behind the lip, just out of sight.

I no longer wear the ring because I've been doing more service work lately, and jewelry just gets in the way -- I don't even wear a watch these days. Instead I keep the ring in a plate with other mementos that otherwise would just get misplaced.

Mrs. , was convinced her wedding ring had been stolen. It had gotten a little tight on her so she didn't wear it all the time. We had painters in to paint the house, and she was convinced that one of the painters had taken the ring from our bedroom. But that's not the kind of thing you accuse someone of unless you can be damn good and ready to prove it. So we thought (or she did, I thought it still might turn up somewhere) it was gone for good. Until months later for some reason we happened to look in the little box in the little drawer where we'd put it for safekeeping while the painters were at work and promptly forgot about.

I have to start by saying that I first thought this was one of ,'s diversions, and was very intrigued that part of his persona was wearing Oscar the Grouch mittens. I'll be giggling about that for a while.

My husband bought the most awesome hat in the world in Arizona, on the road trip where we got married. It was at a standard, road side trading post, and it strongly resembles the Indiana Jones hat. The first thing that happened when we left the training post was it flew off his head while we were traveling down the highway at 80 mph, so between our speed and the wind we had to drive back a good third of a mile to retrieve it.

Since then this hat has gone on its own adventures and miraculously has always made it back. One night the hubby was out with a friend of his for Friday happy hour, and he came home very drunk and without the hat. His night included drinking at a bar on one side of the river, then traveling to the other side by light rail on his way home to the north part of town, and somewhere along the way the hat had disappeared. The next day he went back to retrace his steps on the off chance he could find it. He got all the way to the end of his tracks and spots this guy, waiting for the light rail, and wearing what is obviously his hat. He had stumbled upon it the night before on his own drunken journeys and just happened to be in the same place as my husband the next day. He fortunately was able to convince the guy it was his. We were relieved.

The hat also spent some time in Minnesota for a while when he forgot it after a trip we had taken. It was mailed back a while later when the owner of the B&B had just happened to remember that it belonged to him. Again, relief.

The hat is once again currently missing, but we have faith that it will one day make its way back to us again, a little more worn, but still good as ever.

I lost my virginity when I was 15, but it seems to have found me again in my 20s.

In December 2011 (Just 3 months after 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, etc.), I went to Australia with a collegiate contingent of my fellow students. It was amazing and fun and a good time was had by all.

However, my passport, return plane ticket and all of my spare money were lost stolen out of my hotel room three days before I was due to leave the country. Needless to say, I was pissed and terrified. Not only did I have no more than $40 (American), I also did not have a FUCKING PASSPORT TO GET BACK IN THE U.S. This in the wake of goddamned THE PATRIOT ACT! Think about it. No wonder I was shitting bricks.

After two days of cowering before U.S. Embassy bureaucrats and Western Union pee-ons and Quantas Airline higher-ups, I had a provisionary "passport" (aka: some official gobbledygook on a piece of paper w/ a U.S. embassy letterhead), a few more dollars ($200 U.S.--thanks, Dad & Western Union) and a replacement airline ticket.

When it came time to board the plane back to Texas, I was held by Customs for 3 hours; apparently thanks to my shitty, SHITTY excuse for a "passport." (I guess the U.S. Embassy & Customs have no immediate contact--WTF?!?!) I was questioned, re-questioned, questioned again and berated to the point of practically confessing to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby before "the officials" eventually let me on the fucking plane.

By that time--somehow--the Economy Class, which was where my seat was, had filled up. So I was promoted to a first class seat. NICE. I flew the 25 hours home in the nicest-ass accommodations I have ever been privy to...all thanks to the son-of-a-bitch who stole my passport out of my hotel room. I got drunk TWICE during the flight (that is: got drunk, had a meal, sobered up, slept for a while, got drunk AGAIN, slept then sobered up again, etc.), had a manicure/pedicure--FOR FUCKING FREE, had a New York Strip steak w/ champagne and met Nicole Kidman.

The post-script to this story and the relevant point to this comment diversion is this: four months later, someone in Australia found my passport in a random trash dumpster in Sydney and sent it back to me in the mail. It smelled like mayonnaise, shit and rotten feet, but no one had used to commit a crime and I was damn glad to see it again.

A weird ass random story, but true. My hand to Godtopus.

Thanks be to things lost and found.

I meant, "December 2001."

I lose my wallet a lot - I think I lost three in a year back in 2008. I'm now very good at cancelling cards and stuff.

No fun stories for me... Though I once left my cell phone in a cab and the next person used it to call my mom, and I got the phone back the next day. Had to go to his job and get it.. Nothing too crazy...

Black cardigans - I lose at least 2 a year (I can't live without one in my over air conditioned office).
Reading glasses - I'm using cheap magnifiers at the moment, so I'm going through them at a ridiculous rate (losing them & stepping on them/crushing them).
Once I lost a brand new beautiful navy pea jacket. I'd worn it out for the 1st time, had a favourite pair of gloves in the pocket & a brand new packet of ciggies - left it in a cab.
I try not to become too attached to things!

When I was a kid, we went on family vacation one year and my aunt and uncle dogsat for us. We had this ridiculously badly behaved, inbred, impossibly collie dog that my parents despised and we, of course, loved. While we were away, we got a phone call from my uncle saying that he'd had the dog outside (unleashed, because they live in the woods) and someone nearby had fired up a chain saw, scaring our idiot dog and making him run off into the woods. He hadn't been seen for a day or two at that point, I think. We were devastated that he was lost forever...then about a week later, my uncle was out chopping wood and guess who came out of the woods. Joy! Relief! Except for my parents, who had immediately made peace with losing the dog and were probably incredibly annoyed that he was back.

When I was in college, I was late paying my tuition and the school was insisting on payment. I was trying to pay using tuition reimbursement from my job. Problem is, reimbursement comes at the end of the term, and school wanted their money at the first of the semester. The school referred me to a local bank for an educational loan. I never qualified for Pell grants. Mom and Dad made a little too much money.

Anyhow, I went to the headquarters of the bank, and applied for the loan. It was approved on condition that I have an account there. I had to show my drivers license to open the account. I left my DL at the bank. I was coming down with the flu that day, and I guess I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't miss my license for at least 2 weeks. I was a broke college student, so I wasn't writing checks requiring ID. After laboriously retracing my steps for the last weeks, I discovered the license at the bank. They were holding it for me, but they had not tried to contact me to let me know the DL was safe.

I was upset because I lost my law school diploma and was relieved to find it years later in my in-law's house.

Now, I just need to find my undergraduate diploma.