I'm a loser!

You damn betcha I am...I lose stuff all the time. Always have, for that matter; as a child, I was forever misplacing things. And the reaction when I would confess my carelessness never varied: my father would decree some sort of punishment that would last until I managed to recover whatever-it-was. In the end, I think I found almost all those items, and have followed a similar pattern since (minus the punishment, of course).

Recently, I lost my watch. for two months I went around without it. All the time, it was in my small rolltop desk. Why it was there, I have no idea, unless I put it there during one of my attempts to straighten out the clutter around here.

Now, it's batteries. My camera dropped dead last night, so I did what I always do: I popped the batteries into the charger and went looking for an already-recharged set to put in. Couldn't find 'em.

A year or so back, I had three sets of rechargable AAs for this express purpose. Twelve in all. I never had to fear being caught with a useless camera for lack of power; nor did I have to wait 14 hours for the stupid things to charge before taking pictures again.

Last night, I had the four in the charger, and no more.

So I sat down and did some thinking. Four in the charger...where were the rest?

Two were simple to trace. They're in Germany now, loaned to a friend whose own little digi died at a crucial moment. I hope she recharges them when they go limp instead of just tossing 'em.

That should have left me with six more, yes?

I found the two that had been kept with their brothers who are now in Germany. So all I needed was two more, and I could resume normal operation.

I've looked all over the place. In desperation, I pulled out two bags I carted around with me when I was in Europe a year ago. One, which has more pockets than a pile of Levi's at Wally-Mart, yielded nothing. The other, in which I stashed various information packets, my press credentials and other random bits of paper, gave up 120 Kronor (left over from Sweden) and five Euros.

And one battery.

Now I have seven. That's no more useful to me than four. And I piddled away the better part of an hour on the fruitless hunt.

So it's off to Radio Shack. Wonder if they take Kronor and Euros?

POST-SCRIPTICAL THOUGHT: There is a box in my office closet into which I toss stuff that I probably should throw away, but can never bring myself to part with. Old, old press badges, "souvenier" lapel pins, pens with interesting logos (but no ink), and the like.

Can't think of a way to build the suspense, so I'll just say that I found one more little green AA rechargeable lying in there amid the other detritus....

Pack-ratishness can be good. Sometimes. Not often