When the decluttering goes wrong

[farlymac]

I was getting ready for a trip home over the Thanksgiving holiday, when I couldn't find my Nikon rangefinders bag. In it was an S2, and a Bessa R2S, along with five lenses, a zoom finder, and various other sundries.

I remembered switching bags a while back while I was rearranging the apartment, and it didn't wind up with the others on their new rack. My apartment is not a big place, so it was a mystery to me how I could lose something that obvious. Had to wait until I got back to solve the mystery, so it was not the best of trips home, thinking I might have left the bag somewhere other than the apartment.

I called the camera store where I take my film, and they didn't have it. I checked my camera log to see if there had been a film loading, or someplace I'd been with the cameras lately, but nothing there. This morning I got around to digging through the pile where I thought it may have been last. I didn't find a bag, but instead a box. With all the contents from the old bag in it.

I'd forgotten that the second bag had a smell to it, so I had taken the gear out of it, boxed it all up, and put the box in my catch-all area while doing the room sorting. Then of course other stuff got piled on top of it. The box is now on the rack with all the other cameras.

Now I have an excuse to go shopping for a camera bag. And checking up on an availability down at the old veterans home.

PF

 

[webOSUser]

I understand! I lost a roll of processed film this month.

Glad that you found the gear.

Steve

 

[sreed2006]

The amount of time I have spent looking for "lost" photography gear is abominable. I know exactly how you feel.

I could even lose something in a one-room veteran's home.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

I hate searching for inanimate objects which have become so skillful and determined at hiding from me.

 

[Larry H-L]

I can sympathize with you. I moved 6 mos. ago, and still can't find certain photo and kitchen items. I'm missing a Nikon microphone for video, a loupe, numerous other darkroom items, and my favorite cast iron pan. Back to searching through boxes... again.

 

[alfredian]

Ahhh - "lost" gear, the perfect excuse for "new" gear

Ahhh - "lost" gear, the perfect excuse for "new" gear

If at first you don't find, then look again. Then again, no point in being a fool about it - just go out and get another. If you find the first one, even better, now you have two - an heir & the spare. Also, your new kit can marry whoever it wants!

A friend of mine used to go deer hunting this time of year. If he found a spent brass cartridge of novel caliber he used it as an excuse to acquire reloading gear & materials, then a hunting piece in that caliber. Wife had limited technical knowledge re: hunting kit.

just a thought -alfredian

 

[fdarnell]

I swear there's an alternate universe that reads your mind then hides that specific piece of camera gear that you need immediately but can never find it.

They return it when the need no longer exists.:bang:

 

[rbiemer]

I just moved this weekend, from a small two bedroom apt to my new house. Haven't lost anything, that I know of! 🙂, but I did find a box of unprocessed 35mm film. Something like 40 or 45 rolls of various film though mostly Kodak BWCN...shot presumably in 2006 and 7. Pretty sure I know what I'll be spending my photo budget on for the next little while.
Rob

 

[Spanik]

If it was only that that went missing the moment I turned my head. Today I was looking for my precription that was lying within reach of my keyboard but it took be best part of the evening finding it.

 

[ornate_wrasse]

Things like that happen to me all the time so I totally understand what you went through.

I just had hardwood flooring installed after the carpeting was removed. Of course, everything had to be moved out of the room while this was done. Needless to say, it's been a struggle to find where I put all of it.

 

[Moto-Uno]

^Living in a house with stairs , I refer to that as my "stairmaster aerobic program"😎 Peter

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

Sounds like a bunch of old people discussing their day.
Count me in.

 

[Larry H-L]

Nothing quite like looking all over the house for your eyeglasses, and then realizing that you are wearing them.

 

[AlwaysOnAuto]

My desk and photo cabinet have an 'organized chaos' to them. I don't mind it. My wife hates it.
Having worked most of my life in an environment that required a 'clean desk' at the end of every day, I guess I'm sort of 'rebelling' against having had to do that.
The only time I ever 'lose' something is after I've cleaned up at the behest of my wife. That can be frustrating as he!! when it happens.

 

[Doug]

I strongly dislike losing track of where I put something. The search seems like a big frustration and waste of time. So much so that I replace that "waste of effort" with a different effort to stay organized. Much more satisfying to be able to quickly put my hands on what I want. My wife is the one eternally in search of something she can't find... I think the problem is putting things "away" in the most convenient place at the moment, not the place where she'd necessarily expect to find it later! 🙂

 

[farlymac]

Thinking back on where I left them, as I recall the plan was to use my FSU camera bag as a temporary solution, until I got a good bag. Only thing is I haven't finished the film in the FSU cameras yet, so they are still in the bag.

I hope Joe can chime in with a good recommendation.

PF

 

[oftheherd]

I strongly dislike losing track of where I put something. The search seems like a big frustration and waste of time. So much so that I replace that "waste of effort" with a different effort to stay organized. Much more satisfying to be able to quickly put my hands on what I want. My wife is the one eternally in search of something she can't find... I think the problem is putting things "away" in the most convenient place at the moment, not the place where she'd necessarily expect to find it later! 🙂

Sounds like my wife, and she does exactly the same thing of putting something down in a convenient-at-the-moment place. I wish she could be more careful. I would never be so careless, oh, excuse me a moment. Honey, have you seen my ... 😀 😀

 

[kuuan]

whenever I keep something in a "special" place, specially safe or specially clever which at the time seems to be the obvious choice that one could not possibly forget it invariably actually will be hiding it for good. I try to avoid that and in case I need to keep something in a special place I started to document that and keep that info in my PC. That has saved me a lot of time

 

[citizen99]

I go upstairs to get a camera from the closet ...
What did I come up here for 😕

 

[DownUnder]

Alternate universes and invisible holes

Alternate universes and invisible holes

I swear there's an alternate universe that reads your mind then hides that specific piece of camera gear that you need immediately but can never find it.

They return it when the need no longer exists.:bang:

Yes, this AU exists (some of you may note the absurd logic in this sentence). It used to be called The Invisible Hole, apparently every living-place has one. It's where every lost object in your life end up in when you (seemingly) lose it...

Now and then THI overflows, and objects start reappearing in odd places you never would have put them in the first place.Films in the tool shed. Rolleiflexes under the sofa. In my house, our cats get the blame, but what sort of feline would upset its life routine of eat-sleep-eat long enough to drag a Rollei TLR out of a camera bag and into the living room in the first place?

The one thing that never reappears from THI when you've lost it is of course, money, which vanishes into another AU known as The Invisible Money Hole, ne'er to be seen again in this lifetime. But let's not go there this time, okay?

Back in the '50s when I was a wee nipper,I somehow lost a gift 1880s gold sovereign into THI in my family home. Years later when the house was being demolished, I decided to check out all the possible hidey-holes in the house structure to see if by some chance, one of our family cats had maybe rolled this rare and valuable coin into a small hole in the wall and down into the crevices of the cellar. No such luck, 'tho I did unearth a few other odd coins, notably six Canadian one cent pieces all dated 1957, two old Buffalo nickels and a near mint 20 cent 1917 Newfoundland silver coin, all of which I've kept to this day as evidence of this seemingly supernatural activity.

As for missing films, filters, lens hoods, and a new 35mm f/2 Nikkor lens which vanished from my camera cupboard one day (I was convinced no-one had stolen it as I was alone at home for weeks before and I was temporarily catless at the time), an inflexible sub-clause to THI rule is that the more valuable the object, the longer it will stay invisibly hidden, that is if it ever reappears at all. A sub-sub clause to this is that unless of course the items such as that lens is insured and a claim is made, at which time it will invariably return, after the claim is paid out, as happened with that Nikkor lens. That was the one and only time I've ever got anything out of an insurer.

All of this quite mystifies logical-rational belief or attempts at explanation. Those of us who believe in ghosts and tooth fairies will of course understand...

As usual, all EWP.

😎