T'is Better to have Lost and Found than Never to have Lost at all.

It's an interesting phenomenon, but nonetheless true; it is better to have lost and found than never to have lost at all. Let me give you an example. Right now, I am wearing my faux deep-sea diver's wristwatch, and it is a beauty, given to me as a birthday present by my wife (as a consolation prize when I became eligible for Social Security). While I am pleased to have it, and enjoy the way it keeps time and even reminds me of the date, I wouldn't say I'm in a constant state of awareness of having it on my wrist, let alone appreciation. But let's say I took it off before taking a shower, forgot where I had left it, and couldn't find it. Then, after much fruitless searching, pretend it turned up in the pocket of the terry-cloth robe I had put on after removing all my dirty clothes, but before going in the shower. Boy, would I be overjoyed, much happier than I was before misplacing it!

I imagine you have had the same experience. Sometimes, after losing something and not being able to find it, I offer a "deal" to the god of lost things--just let me know where it is--I don't even want it back. I've long imagined there is a room--perhaps in another dimension--where all my lost items--from childhood to senescence-- are stored. Maybe they're all in heaven, a sort of celestial "lost and found." "There's my skate-key, and my irreplaceable copy of Linda Ronstadt singing "Laga Azul" ("Blue Bayou" in Spanish--just try to find the out-of-print '45). Now there's something to look forward to!

Look, we all lose things and always have. Unfortunately, this predeliction only increases with advancing age. The computer world, for example, has opened up a whole new range of things to lose; e.g. "passwords" you're certain you'll never forget, but do, so we just have to learn to live with it. I even once forgot the password to this blog, but I digress.

Anyway, here's my favorite "retrieved loss" story. About a year ago, I was in the car and about to go out for the evening only to discover that my eyeglass case was empty. Now you might think to yourself, "why didn't you put them in the case when you took them off?" I'd be the first to agree with the soundness of your thought. Here's the thing; I only recently started wearing eyeglasses. For many years, I fooled the world into thinking I was normally sighted by wearing contact lenses. The glasses thing started when an opthamologist I had consulted detected the beginning of what he cleverly called a "cadillac" in my right eye, which was causing a distracting bit of haziness. When I asked him what I should do, his suggestion was simple--wear sunglasses whenever you are out of doors in the daytime. So, I got sunglasses, and wore them over my contacts and mirabile dictu, the haziness cleared. When I had my next year's eye exam, he noticed a bit of corneal wear and tear. To be sure, this was hardly welcome news, but it turns out that, after good behavior, the cornea repairs itself. Foolishly, I had been using saline solution as eye-drops. Who knew?

Okay, I thought, enough with the contact lenses. While normally with me, vanity trumps utility 99 out of 100 times, now was the time to concede. Since my near vision remains 20/20, all I needed were glasses with a distance prescription. In point of fact, since it was getting harder to read with contacts on than without them, this was actually a "win-win." So, I got a very nice (and costly) pair of fashionable distance lenses that were light as a feather, and got darker when I went outside. They call them "transition lenses," an appropriate term for a man who had just entered (semi) retirement. Actually, they looked kind of cool, for glasses.

After vainly searching every nook and cranny in the house, I decided to meditate on the loss. Eureka, I said to myself, as I rose from my trance, having realized what must have happened. The last time I remembered having them with me was when I wore them to play tennis at my local club. Perhaps (I mused) I had played with them, put them down somewhere when I was done, went to use the bathroom, made a call, whatever, and then got on my bike and rode home, sans glasses. When I got home, I took my hard-shell eye-glass case out of my tennis racket case and put the case on its usual spot on the dresser. (Useful hint #1--always put stuff in the same spot. That way, it's far more likely to be where you left it.) Yes, it simply had to be at the tennis club.

Feeling proud of myself, I called the club and got the manager, who actually lives on premises. "Did you find a pair of missing men's glasses?" I asked. His response was neither a "yes" or a "no." "Look in the left-hand top drawer of the desk, by the sign-up sheet," he suggested. Mounting my trusty bike (yes, I can see well enough not to pedal into lampposts without glasses), off I sped to the club. When I opened the aforementioned drawer, I saw several pairs of glasses in the front section, none of them mine. (Ever wonder why they call them a "pair" of glasses? Far as I could tell, I was just missing one.) I then sought out our club manager, a man more earnest than diligent, and asked in my most lawyerly tone (the one I had honed over years of cross-examination) whether he had actually found a missing pair of glasses the day before, or simply was directing me to the location where he customarily put misplaced glasses. His "I don't know," was hardly dispositive. Upon further grilling, he tearily confessed that he didn't remember. I then conducted a thorough, though fruitless, search all around the club. Did I leave them on the book-case just outside the men's-room; in the men's room itself; on the desk-top; on the court; anywhere? Nada.

Home I went, feeling proud of my skillful interrogation techniques, but still clueless as to the whereabouts of my "designer lenses." As you can well imagine, what followed was another frustrating search of my house, a big old Victorian with more nooks and crannies than a Thomas's English Muffin. I was just about at my wit's end--an arguably short tether--when I decided I no longer wanted the glasses back. Just have "Hermes the Trickster" or whoever pulls these pranks on us say, "schmendrick, you're wearing them," or "they're in your tennis shorts, which you put in the washing machine" or something. No, no, I silently screamed--don't give into him, he's just messing with your head. They're not in the celestial lost and found, and besides, in heaven, everyone has perfect eyesight. Just sleep on it. Things are always (supposedly) better in the morning.

And so, rising with the dawn, I decided to return to my last best hope for recovery--yon tennis club. I don't precisely know why I was going back, but it felt like the right thing to do. I sensed that I was going to find them this time. Returning to the scene of the crime, I opened the same drawer, but this time past the first section where the other glasses were stored and there--at the very back of the drawer, behind a wooden separation I had not previously thought to look behind--were my lost glasses. Now I, a heretofore unhappy and forgetful fool, was suddenly overjoyed. I was proud of my perseverance, and tenacity. Others may give up their searches in frustration, but not this guy! I was so happy, I took my wife out for a fancy, celebratory meal (made possible by the money I had "saved" by not needing a new pair of glasses). And yes, I did tell our brow-beaten club manager that I had found them-- just where he had said they might have been. Look, someone as resourceful and clever as I can afford to be gracious in victory. "Thanks, man, and, by the way, sorry," I said, confident in my triumphal success, but man enough to be humble. What a guy!

I still feel so good about having found them that it was well worth having lost them; far better than I would have had they remained safely within their case. After all, I haven't misplaced them since, and don't feel particularly overjoyed. One could even argue that careful people should never lose things. By the way, friends, I misplaced an all-too expensive pair of lightweight pigskin gloves somewhere on my way to a Board meeting last month. They're two-tones of tan, very luxurious. Anybody see them?