July 2003 - DeVere at Large Lost and Found I have been looking for my keys for 10 minutes. I have ripped apart my office. Gone through every drawer in the house. Searched all flat surfaces. Nothing! If my bride were here, the keys would appear instantly because she has that kind of power. According to a famous time management guru, a person with a messy desk spends one and a half hours per day looking for "lost" stuff or just being distracted by stuff that should be someplace else. That would be over seven hours in one five-day week wasted! (Of course, this is absurd. If it were true, I would have wasted close to a decade of my life just looking for my #@*&^%$#@ keys!) As I storm through the house, cursing yet another of my bad habits, Dear Daughter emerges from her bedroom. "Whatcha looking for, Daddy-o?" she asks innocently. MY KEYS!!!! "That was rude," she replies to my rudeness and walks over to Moe's bed. (Moe is our giant black Lab.) I'm sorry. I'm late. I'm irritated. I'm crabby. I'm wasting time, I say. "Here." Darling Daughter reaches under Moe's bed and dangles the keys in my face. (Due to her strong desire to protect family members [i.e., GRRRRRRR] and her longevity, Moe merits a huge old comforter near the fireplace.) WHY WERE MY KEYS UNDER THE DOG'S BED??!! I have lost all subtlety. "We were playing 'Find!' last night while you were working in your messy office." ("Find!" is a game the family has played with our Lab since she was a pup. You can hide two seemingly identical, though they have different owners, socks in, say, a closet, then give Moe the command: "Find [sock owner's name] sock!" And she does it. In seconds!) "We were trying to teach her to find your keys," Daughter explains coolly. Obviously, it didn't work, I smirk, then grab my keys and head for the door. "Oh, it worked. She found them in the pocket of your pants that were hanging on the bathroom door," Unrelenting Daughter says. Which explains the teeth imprints on one leg of my otherwise reasonably unblemished trousers. "Moe doesn't trust you with keys," she adds as I slip out to the car. To be honest, the dog is right. I am bad with keys, glasses, wallet. I also have a very poor habit of jotting down phone numbers on slips of paper and not putting a name to those numbers. "Reverse look up" on the Internet has saved my bacon more often than I care to remember. ("Reverse look up?" You enter a phone number and, if it is listed, you will get the name of the person/company to whom that phone number belongs. Cool.) I would worry about my forgetfulness if it were something new. But it isn't. When I was in grade school, I would hide my lunch so some of the bigger kids wouldn't steal my Hostess cupcakes. Then I would forget where I hid it. I have also forgotten certain of life's milestones, like birthdays and, yes, anniversaries. I have tried various remedies, from finger strings (when I was younger) to executive "reminder" services. They keep your schedule for you and call you to make sure you make your appointments, which works fine if you remember where you put your cell phone. The dog being put in charge of my keys is the last straw, I say to myself as I drive off to my important meeting. I am determined to change my ways. I will clean up my office. I will leave my wallet on the dresser, in the same place, every night. I will spend that seven plus hours I waste each week doing meaningful, family things. I make my meeting on time only to learn the guy I'm supposed to meet isn't there yet. "He's misplaced his car keys," his assistant tells me, indicating my guy is on the phone. Even at a distance of several feet, I can hear familiar expletives booming from the handset. Tell him to look in his dog's bed, I suggest. There is a moment of silence after his assistant, looking at me rather oddly, complies. "He'll be here in ten minutes," the assistant tells me as she hangs up. "But how did you know ..." It's a long story, I say, cutting her off. ™