Bless this mess

On learning to embrace my floors

Is there anything more maddening than losing something inside your own house? 

There is, of course, and it’s buying something to replace the thing you lost inside your own house – but the losing of the thing comes a close second.

In my family we call this experience ‘the Chipmunk sweatshirt’, in reference to a sweatshirt featuring erstwhile toothy rockers Alvin, Simon and Theodore, which my mum bought for my brother some time in the early 90s and then lost in the house before he could wear it. 

She searched high and low for that sweatshirt. Inside all manner of knotted pine furniture; beneath the VCR trolley; behind dado rails and swagged curtains etc, but it never resurfaced. Occasionally we used to think we could hear it moving around at night. Squeaking. 

Anyway, family lore has it now that when an object disappears, suddenly and nonsensically, it has ‘gone to join the Chipmunk sweatshirt’.

Items that have gone to join the Chipmunk sweatshirt in my own home of late include: at least a …