[David Thornton]

Went to put my antique sgian dubh in the hose Saturday and couldn't find it.

I've searched for hours since, emptied drawers, pulled every piece of luggage out, scoured closets, grilled family but I am afraid it is gone. I'm gutted. I spent a long time looking for just the right one, and spent a fair sum obtaining it and now I've lost it. Haven't lost a knife since I was a kid

I even woke up at midnight with a new idea where to look, but failed again.

Sympathy please, and if you know any incantations that will make it miraculously reappear by all means start chanting.

David

[Jack Daw]

Do you remember removing it from your hose the last time you were done with it?

[Canuck of NI]

If I recall correctly, there is an ancient Ulster method of recovering lost knives, found in the book Tom Sawyer. Tom uses it or talks about it. Hopefully you lost it at home and it's just the Little People hiding it to have you on for a while.... But this why I shove my valuable sgian way down in the hose when I'm out and about, since the Big People are less likely to relent once they have something

[auld argonian]

Did you remove it from your sock somewhere along the way because it was catching on something or encumbering you in some way? Possibly in the car while driving? I assume that you checked wherever it is that you usually get undressed...bathroom, bedroom...

My experience with stuff that I lose is that I put it somewhere "temporarily" thinking that I'll just pick it up in a little while and put it back where it belongs. These days this includes coffee cups, screwdrivers, cd's...I'm still looking fo a couple of enlarger lenses that I put "in a safe place" a couple of years ago and can't remember where the safe place is...

Good luck. Hope it's not the beginning of CRS* syndrome...

Best

AA




*Can't Remember S#!+

[Canuck of NI]

I found the Tom Sawyer reference, Tom Sawyer Chapter VIII, good ol' Google. I see it was for lost marbles but there was a knife involved. No harm in trying it, pasting it here-below:

" He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this in- cantation impressively:

"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!"

Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was bound- less! He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said:

"Well, that beats anything!"

Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been separated. But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had many a time heard of this thing succeeding but never of its failing before. It did not occur to him that he had tried it several times before, himself, but could never find the hiding-places afterward. He puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided that some witch had interfered and broken the charm. He thought he would satisfy himself on that point; so he searched around till he found a small sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped depression in it. He laid himself down and put his mouth close to this de- pression and called --

"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"

The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a second and then darted under again in a fright.

"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done it. I just knowed it."

He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:

"Brother, go find your brother!"

He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each other."

[MacKay71]

Once mine fell onto my boot!

[MrShoe]

"Tony, Tony look around......somethings lost that can't be found......."
Did that help? Always seems to works for my wife.

With as much as it means to you, I'm sure that you would have noticed it if it were missing when you last undressed. I often have the same problem as Auld Argonian, thinking I found a safe temporary location to put something. Sometime the most obvious places get overlooked easily. Me being 6'4" I often put things up high...top of the fridge or book case. A time or two it was in the frigde. Don't ask. He refers to it as CRS for me similar to Alzheimer's but known as Anheuser's

I have done the same as I feel for you and truly hope that it turns up soon.

[Santa Kona]

Check the dryer that is the first place I look for ANYTHING I have loss-ed.

[Earl D-]

Having to hunt down my sgain time and time again, I now put my sgain in my sporran when I'm not wearing the kilt. Since I only have two sporrans, it's an easy search as they both hang on the same hook in the closet.

Hope you find it!

[Tobus]

I have the same problem as many of you, but it's not ME that finds the "safe place" for stuff. It's my wife. She will put things of mine away and then forget where she put them. But she assures me that they're put away safely!

This is why I have a special drawer reserved for kilt stuff. Hose, flashes/garters, belts, kilt pin, sgian dubh, and all other accessories go in that drawer as soon as I take them off, lest my wife put them away somewhere.