They tell me I need to post pretty regular on here. So here’s the current situation.

Last week, I walked over to my uncle’s house to pick up the latest installment from Amazon. Since our two enormous dogs tend to poo wherever the mood strikes them, one has to be cautious of land mines scattered throughout the yard. It was past six, therefore, past dark. I dug out my custom flashlight and, out of habit, checked to make sure the light was working.

No dice.

Johnny oh-so-helpfully offered the use of his, which is a chancy privilege indeed. He’s picky about his flashlights. And he has like, two dozen of them. Must be a guy thing.

So grudgingly, I took it. It was one of his better ones, I knew. It sure was heavy, for no bigger than it was. You could screw the end around to get your desired brightness and beam diameter, or you could hold the button down on the end for immediate use. I elected to hold the button, since I wasn’t going far. Once I got on the other side of the fence, I tucked it into the kangaroo pocket on my sweatshirt with my dead one.

I collected my packages after a few minutes of small talk and headed back home.

Now, here’s where things get hazy.

I placed my (non working) flashlight in my sweetgrass basket on the end table, where it resides with other important objects like keys, my chapstick collection, and a plethora of ink pens. I know I deposited it there because it’s there now. I either handed the fancy flashlight back to Shug, or perhaps laid it on his dresser. The jury is still out on this particular detail.

At any rate, a few days ago he asked after the whereabouts of said flashlight.

“I gave it back to you,” I replied automatically.

“I can’t find it.”

“We were downstairs,” I supplied helpfully.

“I know we were downstairs when I gave it to you, but I don’t remember you giving it back to me.”

Nonplussed, I immediately got up and went to my basket. Only my sad little flashlight. I checked the basket underneath the table, where I typically store my growing stockpile of Scentsy bars. Nope. No little black flashlight with a screw end. No little black flashlight at all.

Hmm. “Well, I’m sure I gave it back to you,” I say authoritatively.

“I’ll look downstairs again. I gotta find it. It was two hundred dollars.”

And that was the end of that. For two days.

So, yesterday I no more than get in the door than the question of the flashlight is broached again.

“I can’t find my flashlight,” he says by way of hello.

“Well, I can’t help it. I gave it back to you.”

“I don’t think you did. I looked in both places I keep it and it’s not in either one.”

“This sounds suspiciously like not my problem,” I retort, going about my business of settling into my routine after working all day.

“Babe, I don’t feel like you’re grasping the magnitude of the situation. It’s a tactical flashlight. I’ve had it almost ten years. It was $200 ten years ago when I bought it.”

“I can’t help it. If I made it back with my $5 flashlight, surely to goodness I made it back with your $200 one.”

“Well, I don’t know where it is.”

By this point, I’ve made it as far as the kitchen. “I’m sure I gave it back to you.”

“It was two hundred dollars,” he stressed.

“It sounds like you overpaid.”

“Well, I can’t imagine me keeping up with it all this time and you using it for one night and it’s suddenly mysteriously missing.”

I sigh. “Did you look on your table?”

“Yes.”

“Under all the crap? And under the table?”

“Yes. And in the pouch I keep it in.”

Next thing I know, he’s on the phone with Uncle Dale, inquiring after a flashlight that maybe perhaps had been left over there. My name, of course, is mentioned in conjunction with the missing light source.

“I didn’t lose your flashlight!!” At this point, I have become shrill.

He’s too busy talking about how it was Two Hundred Dollars to notice.

I begin my search. I check my baskets one last time. I methodically search the pockets of my coats in the closet. I check the basket under the coffee table. (Do you think I have a basket problem? I think this affliction affects many southern women). No black flashlight. I pace back to the spare bedroom Shug uses for all his clothes and “man stuff” that’s too important to live in the man cave (and by that, I mean the entirety of downstairs). I scoot some papers around on his dresser and feel underneath piles of clothes. My husband is a bit of a slob for awhile, then he picks everything up and it’s spotless for 48 hours. We’re soon to approach the cleaning duration of his cycle.

Aha!!! I spy a black flashlight of the correct dimension on his desk. I squint. No, that can’t be right.

This one has NRA emblazoned down the side. A freebie, then. My eyes dart to another one on the shelf, near a crusty bandage.

Surefire. Shitfire! It’s the Surefire two hundred dollar flashlight.  I pick it up gleefully and prance back to the living room, where Shug is dully staring at the tv, mourning the loss of his treasured tactical flashlight.

I clear my throat.

“The missing flashlight….is it about this long?” I indicate by spacing my hands approximately six inches apart.

“Yes.”

“And it’s black?”

He gives me a look that says “you know damn good and well exactly what the flashlight looks like because you’re the last one who saw it alive”.

“And does it say ‘Surefire’?”

“Yes.”

I whip it out. “Well, lookie here, lookie here what I found on a shelf in your bedroom!”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Mmm-hmmm. So I guess you need to add a third spot where you keep your two hundred dollar flashlight! I’ll just stand here and await my apology.”

To his credit, he immediately set forth with only a somewhat sarcastic apology. I then called Uncle Dale to clear my good name before my reputation was forever tarnished.

And that is how I found the missing flashlight.

Now, I must go try to find his work keys.

You can’t make this stuff up.

At least I haven’t borrowed them. Maybe we need another basket for organizing.