NOVEMBER 18 – For Christmas years ago my wife gave me an electronic key finder. It was her response to my periodic insanity triggered by a desperate search for lost keys. The key finder worked fine . . . until I couldn’t find the finder.
Everyone loses or misplaces one thing or another at one time or another. Though the result of “lost” and “misplaced” is the same in each case, these two methods of separation of person from object are quite different from each other.
In my world view, “losing” something connotes that an independent force separated the “something” from its rightful possessor’s knowledge of its location. An example would be the force of gravity furtively pulling your car fob out of your overcoat pocket as you pack the groceries into the back of your car. Because the fob is nonetheless within range of the ignition, the car starts up fine, and you drive away. Only when you arrive home and reach into your pocket do you discover you’ve lost the darned fob.
On the other hand, “misplaced,” in my way of looking at things, is caused by inattention. For example, not having lost the fob in the grocery store parking lot, you drive home, carry the groceries inside, set them on the kitchen counter, and . . . your phone rings, breaking your cadence. You answer and simultaneously and subconsciously draw the fob out of your coat pocket. Your mind doesn’t notice when you step into the powder room and put the fob down next to the Kleenex dispenser so you can grab a tissue to blow your nose. Putting that slight inconvenience behind you, you continue the phone conversation as you re-enter the kitchen to put away the groceries. When the call is over, you fish the remote out of its holder on the side counter and switch on the TV to catch the news. The fob is now so completely outside your sight, mind, routine, and attention, it’s as good as lost, except it isn’t. It was simply misplaced. (If only you had a fob finder.)
This past weekend I experienced an unusual combination of “lost” and “misplaced.” The subject object was my favorite set of handheld clippers. I never enter the woods without them. A compulsive user of clippers, I turn them loose on any sign of blister rust within reach on the white pines; raspberry plants poking their stems onto the trail in the tree garden; small lower branches of saplings; hazelwood shoots crowding out pine seedlings, et cetera. I’ve trained myself to be attentive about my handling of these clippers: they’re either in hand or carried securely in a pocket; or, when I put them down somewhere I try to focus on where I place them. As a back-up measure, because I haven’t eradicated absent-mindedness, I attached a short bright phosphorescent orange ribbon to the end of one of the handles. The orange ribbon acts as a kind of collar on my very favorite “huntin’ hound” among a collection of half a dozen hand-held clippers we have in the “kennel” back at the cabin. If by chance the preferred dog should get loose and wander off on its own, theoretically I’d be able to track it down by searching for that bright orange collar.
On Sunday morning I found myself kneeling—not in church but on the ground—next to one of the fences I needed to install to protect 50 hemlock seedlings from browsing deer. Having used the clippers to cut to size two hazelwood stakes for immediate use and another four for the next two fences, I put the clippers aside and teased the first two stakes through the plastic netting of the fence. I then proceeded to install the next two fences.
When I reached the fourth hemlock and now needed to cut to size another set of stakes, I realized I’d misplaced the clippers. I soon remembered, however, that I’d left them beside one of the previous two or three fenced-in hemlocks. I retraced my steps to retrieve the tool, but to my amazement there was no sign of the “dog’s orange collar.” The dog, as it were, was on the loose, ranging nearby but out of sight. I couldn’t believe how the clippers could disappear so fast. Now down on my hands and knees, I gently raked through the leaves with my fingers, searching for orange. As the seconds ticked by I grew angry with myself for not having paid closer attention to where I’d placed the clippers. Worse, I worried that my favorite “dog” of the bunch was now as good as LOST. Sure, I had another five sets of clippers back at the cabin but the set with the bright orange ribbon was preferred. The grips fit my hand best and over all the set worked best. They were like a duck hunter’s best bird dog, but now, the dog had gotten so separated from its owner, the probability developed that the two would never be reunited until dog and owner were both too old and rusty to work together.
After searching without success through the leaves surrounding the first hemlock, I moved to the second and the third but still with no sign of orange. Amazing, I thought, how a set of hand-clippers misplaced on a bed of leaves could sink down so far, so fast as to be out of sight—bright orange ribbon and all. Misplaced initially, perhaps, they were now lost. I returned to the first fence and raked again with my hands, leaving no leaf unturned. Finally, a fleck of orange appeared from under the brown leaves. The dog once lost after being misplaced now was found.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
