My House is a Black Hole

I have just spent an hour scouring my house for Jim's Nintendo DS Lite game.

Missing Item Report

Subject name: Nintendo DS game

Date of Report: Sunday April 27, 2008 Missing Since: April 26 or 27

Description: Shiny black plastic, last seen wearing a navy blue and black padded case and holding a white stylus. Known to be carrying Jim's mod chip and at least two games in its pocket when last seen.

Facts: Subject last seen by me recharging batteries on the kitchen counter. I believe this event took place last Friday. It was definitely before the weekend. Upon interview, Jim stated that he had last seen the subject sitting on the back of the couch during the weekend. Subject was not reported missing until Sunday evening, at which time this household officer did not take the report seriously. Many items go missing for brief periods of time and show up a few hours later. I don't consider an item officially "missing" until it's been gone at least 24 hours.

Upon interview, Lily stated that she did not know where the subject was and did not recall whether she had seen it or not. Upon interview, Jack stated "Papa game GONE."

Jim searched the home half-heartedly on April 27. Both Jim and I searched a little more thoroughly on several occasions between that date and May 1, 2008. I conducted a hard target search this afternoon, with no success.

Status: The game is really missing!

Seriously, this house is not that big. I've checked all of the kids' usual hiding spots: behind the couch, behind the chair, behind the radiators, in my knitting basket, in the storage drawers under Lily's bed (where I located the missing flashcards she's supposed to be working on), in the bathroom cabinets and in the TV cabinet. No game to be found.

My Household Officer instincts are telling me that the game was removed from the house by someone. I checked the car to see if Lily brought it with her on a ride somewhere, but it is not in my car. I've left a message with Jim to make sure he didn't bring it along with him somewhere and leave it at a friend's house or in his briefcase. Help! I'm running out of ideas! Maybe a masked intruder broke into our home and stole the DS?

My usual mantra in these cases is "It'll turn up." Things always do. But the DS has been missing for a long time now. Things usually show up in a couple of days.

There must be a secret kid hiding place that I haven't discovered yet. I'm off to look again, this time while cleaning up the house. Wish me luck! If you can think of any other places I should look, leave a comment. This is making me CRAAAAA-ZY!

PS: Thanks for the nice comments, both on here and in real life. I'm not going to let the haters get me down!