Black holes and vorpal dust bunnies

There is a black hole somewhere in my house. It’s a free floating quantum singularity that randomly sucks up objects for days at a time and then deposits them somewhere else. I’ve never seen the black hole, but I know where it’s been. I never know where it will strike next.

Most recently the black hole has been responsible for a number of missing objects starting with my bedroom slippers. They disappear regularly and I end up trekking all over the house trying to find them. They invariably turn up in a room I’ve visited at least twice during my search. Earlier this week the thermometer disappeared. My daughter had been under the weather when we got back from vacation and I took her temperature with one of those little heat sensitive plastic strips. I love it and I’ve had it for years. It may not be as accurate as the new digital ones, but when the kids were little it was the easiest way to tell if they had a fever. The dern thing disappeared for three days. I looked everywhere. Gone. I finally went to the drug store and bought another one for $3.49. The next day the black hole deposited the missing one back in the dresser drawer where I’d looked four times. [It belongs in the medicine cabinet.]

Yesterday my cheese grater disappeared. You may laugh, but I find this frustrating enough to blog about. I have two cheese graters – a good one and a not so good one. Of course the good one is missing. I’ve looked everywhere. Not too many people in my house have cause to grate cheese. Mostly, since I’m the chief cook – and the chief dish washer, it’s my domain. So you’d think I’d be able to find it. It’s not like a lot of other people around here do dishes or – gasp – put anything away!

I’m confident it will turn up. The black hole always returns the things it steals. It returned that pot lid that had been missing for a week. And it finally returned the pair of scissors that went missing during Christmas morning gift unwrapping last December. They turned up only after I bought a set of five new scissors to replace them figuring I’d have four to go before I needed to buy scissors again.

I’d like to get rid of the black hole. Though I’m afraid that may violate the laws of physics. I’d settle for training it to suck up things I’d really like to get rid of like the dust bunnies that show up behind the bedroom doors or inside the closets. The black hole never touches them. I think, like me, it’s afraid of them because they never move but they just keep growing.

Maybe next time something is missing, I’ll break open a dust bunny and look inside. If I find the cheese grater in there – I’m afraid I’ll probably have to throw it out and get a new one anyway.