Does this ever happen to you?

You're looking for something and you're absolutely 100% convinced that you know exactly what it looks like and where it is? And you look. First where you KNOW it is - and isn't. And then everywhere else it might possibly be - and it still isn't. And then you look everywhere - and it isn't even there. And then... two or three days or three or four weeks or even a couple of months after you've spent hours looking for it, you finally find it - and it doesn't look at all like you expected.

I learned about the tricky nature of objects at my office. Someone asked me to find a binder containing documents. "It's in my office," they said, "and it's in a blue binder." I looked for hours, not just in that person's office but - I worked in a relatively small office - in every single possible place that blue binder could be. And then, totally by accident, I found the documents. In a file folder.

I am willing to swear that I was told a blue binder, that the person who told me that swore that it was in a blue binder.

For me, this mostly happens to me with books. In fact, it happened just last week. I was looking for a book by a friend of mine, Leanne Karella. I KNEW the book's cover was white and it was trade paperback. This narrows it down some, but I still had to look at every bookshelf in my house - many of them - because I have so many books and so little room that my alphabetization of books is only about 5% accurate. I have books piled in front of other books, on top of other books, crammed into tiny corners. I have books in dresser drawers, in closets. Well, you get the picture.

So knowing what a book looks like really helps. I spent three days looking for that book. I really wanted it. I'd read it once but I wanted to read it again. So I kept looking. And then, when I finally gave up looking and was going to email Leanne and ask her to sell me another copy, I found it. By accident.

And guess what? Since I'd first read the book, the cover had morphed itself from a white cover to a black one.I had probably seen it a dozen times when I was looking for it - but it wasn't white, so my eye passed right over it.

So be warned. Objects in your house or your office or your car have the ability to transform themselves. They can change color. They can change shape. They can definitely move themselves from one place to another. I suspect they do this while I'm away or while I'm sleeping. And I know they do it to drive me crazy.

And it's working.

Kate