I hate having to replace expensive items I lost!

[Rich Engelhardt]

I found the best way to avoid this is to teach my wife how to do something, then buy her all nice new equipment.

Then when I can't find mine, I grab hers.

[Jim Koepke]

I found the best way to avoid this is to teach my wife how to do something, then buy her all nice new equipment.

Then when I can't find mine, I grab hers.

LOL!

jtk

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

that expensive widget, is not lost, just bewildered. I enjoy having the right quality tool for the job, just not the extra hour the job takes while I look for the wandering tool. (Just two days ago, I had a splinter and went to my wife's sewing box for a needle to help get the splinter out. Lo and behold, I found my stud finder. Why it was in my wife's sewing box is one of those unanswered mysteries of the universe. Like a few years ago, when I noticed my dial vernier caliper on my daughter's bedroom dresser.. When I asked, the answer was totally incoherent gibberish.)

[Ron Selzer]

currently looking for a refund check over $400. remember opening the mail in a different place then normally do while on my way out the door
Gone thru the trash and looked all of the normal places

[Thomas L Carpenter]

It's amazing how things become invisible when they aren't where they belong.

[Clint Baxter]

The looking for items and being unable to find them really comes to fruition when you have to move a "very congested" shop to a brand new residence/shop. And you have not yet been able to set up the "shop" because you're still doing the necessary upgrades and modifications to turn it into "your shop".

Most of the loose/smaller stuff from the old shop got placed in Rubbermaid containers for the move. Storage for transport and then being able to store them until I'm able to place them into a new "more permanent" location. When we did the move, I tried to put a label on the containers to have an idea of what was where, but with all the small items, it is pretty much impossible to identify everything, unless one spends forever doing so.

So nowadays, I remember that I had this or that widget, and had I been in the old shop, could have generally taken you right to it, or even been able to tell someone else where it was located. If I expect to find it now, that is entirely another story. I have 26 lineal feet of floor to ceiling shelves in the garage that are mostly filled top to bottom with Rubbermaid storage totes, and the item I'm looking for is somewhere in that mess. Of course that is only if it didn't make it into one of the other storage containers that maintain their temporary residence in the "shop in progress". Or maybe the item could be hanging out in one of the multiple trash cans pressed into service for storage as well.

If it's something that's needed on a timely basis, not too expensive, and it doesn't surface quickly when the search is conducted, I just bite the bullet and purchase another one. As it's been noted here, I needed some sealing material to place between a new wall and the concrete floor and a couple days of searching was unable to find the partial roll that I knew I had at the old place. Off to HD for a new roll, (least it wasn't very expensive), and used 14' of the 50' roll. Okay, have plenty for the next time I need a small portion. Next day I empty a box that SWMBO wanted to use and there is the missing roll, again a partial roll kept for small projects. Now the two of them are keeping each other company until I can find a new place that they can use to hideout in.