Poltergeists

In some cultures it's thought that when you die you are presented with all the things you have lost 'on the other side'. That's a lifetime of single socks, dropped coins, mislaid keys and mobile phones collected in the great lost property office in the sky.

I'm expecting that moving house is somewhat similar and that we will start to unearth lost treasures from behind furniture and the foot of drawers that have been unopened for years. Since having children, the rate at which things go missing has increased exponentially. It's not just the obvious stuff like kids socks, although they do seem to have a life of their own, or hats and dummies (ditto). Stuff just seems to disappear into thin air to the extent that you begin to suspect a malevolent presence.

Toys are another candidate for missing in action status. This particularly infuriates me as I have something of the quartermaster about me - a place for everything and everything in its place. It drives me nuts when I can't find the last piece of a jigsaw, the final action figure for a particular toy, or the piece of track that completes the railway line. Where are they?

I suspect that some of them ended up posted in the bin when J was younger. Other items might possibly have been left at his nursery or tossed from his buggy. It's not even that this stuff is valuable. It's the not knowing where it is that annoys me.

At times of greatest exasperation my wife nods sagely and says, "I'm sure it will turn up." This drives me even more bonkers. Does she know where it is? Is it some kind of elaborate game that she has devised with the kids - "Let's watch daddy lose it, shall we. Hide his phone in the freezer." Mainly however it's because I suspect her of being the architect of many of our losses. She is very scatty, with a slack attitude to her own possessions which she is passing on to our offspring.*

The latest loss is a whole bucket full of toy dinosaurs. One or two of their number going missing is just about excusable, but the extinction of the whole pack (hmm, collective noun for dinosaurs?) is mind boggling. It's right up there with the mystery of the mini guitar amp. This isn't a particularly small item and we don't live in a particularly large flat, so where the flip can it be?

I'm beginning to think that there is only one solution to the problem - throw away half of everything you own. At least that way if something turns up later you will feel blessed.

* Sorry darling, but it's true!