-- Anonymous, October 07, 2000

Answers

My high school ring. I gave it to an old boyfriend 30 years ago and never got it back. If your name is Ronnie and you're from Georgia, contact Angel please!

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

I always knew you were an Angel, Oma. I'd like to have back the belief that there is some essential good or a smidgen of humanity in every human being.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

My mind has temporarily (I hope!!) taken a hike. Also, a good friend whose husband felt like I was a threat (because I went on to school) and he wanted her to stay home and have babies so he put me on her list of "friends not to correspond with" after a 15 year friendship. I miss her.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

My youth! God I'd like another chance. Wouldn't we all? James

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

I once thought I wanted my virginity back, but now I don't. I'm happy with how I "lost" it and with whom.

I would also like my high school ring back, but I lost it on a municipal bus on my way to work one morning a short time after I graduated high school 20 yrs ago, so that thing is long gone. Lost with that ring was the ring my high school sweetheart gave me. I'd like that back, too.

I'd like my first child's childhood back so I could be the kind of Mom for him then that I am today, sixteen years and three more kids later. But truthfully, I don't really want to go back there because I was married to his father then, a first class psychopathic abusive sonofabitch, and I wouldn't want to do that particular era again.

Somehow I lost the copy of the high school newspaper in which I wrote this series of articles on marijuana. I'd like that back, please.

I lost the opportunity to ask my Gramma Marietta about her life when she was still alive and unaffected by the Alzheimer's that robbed us all of her memories and, well...her. I'd like to go back and sit and talk with her for days and days.

Finally, my friend Andrew, who I lost when he was only 18 in a car accident.

~Ginny

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

My sense of pure, unrelenting optimism and the idea that my life was laid out before me... endless and full of unchecked possibilities.

Also, my first love - not sure I have "lost" him as those tragic and mythical and wonderful "first loves" are forever a part of our existence.

And, last but not least, I wish I could retrieve time wasted. --- --

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

This one still makes me cringe. I'd like to have the gold watch my dad gave my mom back. It was the last present he gave her before he died and I wore it to an away game (volleyball). Someone stole it out of my bag and I will never forget the look in her eyes when I told her I wore it without her permission and it got stolen. Thinking of that watch always makes me feel low. He never gave her presents, so that made it even worse.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

My engagement ring. I haven't been able to find it for several weeks, and I fear that The Chaos of Moving deems it gone forever. I get sick every time I think about it....

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

Oh goodness me Bubba (blush, blush, fan self with hanky) thanks for the compliment. My halo does slip a little more now than it use to though.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

My Uncle Bob. He died was I was 13.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 2000

Well, if we're getting all supernatural and stuff, I'd be lying if I didn't say "the figure I had in high school." But really, I'd just like to find all the earrings I lost. One opal, one pair of gold, one new amber stud. (Please don't tell Paul.) And a pearl ring Paul gave me, which I'm pretty sure I dropped in the toilet on a moving day. I'm always losing jewelry. That's why I tell Paul not to buy it for me.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

I wish I could find my friend, Christine (Chrissy) Rhodes, who lived in Ben Lomond, CA for much of the first part of her life. She moved to San Diego, and then Las Vegas. The last I heard from her, she was in Vegas with a boyfriend named Rocky and that was in I think 1989.

I also wish, among many other things, to have all the jewelry I've lost (or had stolen).

And of course I wish I could have Samantha back, but she died and I'll never see her again. I miss her every hour of every day.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

Definitely earrings and socks. I'm always missing a sock. Luckily, I haven't lost any expensive jewelry. Yet. I'm always holding on to the match to the earring I lost because I think I'm gonna find it one day. A few months ago, I did find a missing one, but lost it again after a few months. I have a bad habit of taking off my earrings and leaving them wherever.

I also wish I could make up for wasted time. Especially some of the time I spend online.

-- Anonymous, October 09, 2000

Uh, Ginny...you said you were happy about "HOW" you lost your virginity. Care to share that with us? I thought there was only one way you could lose it. If there's more than one way I DEMAND to know what it is. I don't want to die thinking I missed out on some exotic manuever. (Just joking) No I'm not. I want to know. I think losing your virginity falls in the same category as finding Jesus: Knock! Knock! Goober in a suit :"Hello, sir. We're from the XYZ Congregation and we'd like to know if you've found Jesus." Drunk Bubba: "Found him? Fuck! I didn't even know he was missing!"

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2000

Some day, after my dad's in heaven, I'm gonna tell y'all the story of how I almost lost my virginity one night. We'll laugh and laugh.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2000

Last time someone said "I found Jesus" I asked them if he'd slipped behind the couch or the refrigerator. They didn't like that and said maybe I should find Jesus, too, and I said "oh, no hurry, he'll just be in the last place I look". Then I had flashbacks to that book "If Jesus Came To My House" which freaked me out as a wee sprog. I didn't want Jesus to come to my house, my room was always a mess. More seriously, I feared that I'd have a heart attack, as I'd seen one too many sitcom incidents where someone clutched their chest and swore that Jesus had come to take them "home" (e.g., "Elizabeth, honey, I'm comin' to join ya! Our son LaMont is a big dummy! Oh! oh!"), and I wasn't ready to go to my reward yet. Our long-distance relationship was cool by me. Apparently Jesus is cool by it too, as he hasn't shown up in a glowing beam of light yet to scare the tar out of me.

Okay, seriously, I lost a birthstone ring when I was in first grade. It was loose on my fingers and had a pink stone in a gold setting. It probably wasn't worth much, but I got so much grief for it that I'd like to have it back and give it to my mother and say "YOU keep it, I'm hopeless with keeping track of any nice things".

I've had a number of things liberated from me over the years and it would be nice if they were all returned. Well, realistically, I'm not sure I'd have the storage space to hold everything, though, as I've had so much stuff swiped from me that it might not be worth the extra effort to store it if I got it back.

My first car, before it died in an accident. Preferably how it looked fresh off the lot. I loved my little car.

My most recent love relationship. I thought I'd found Mr. Right For Me,and I'd love to go back to feeling that way again.

A box of belongings I left behind two jobs ago. I meant to go back and pick it up but never got off work from my new job in time to get out there and do it. It had mostly crap in it, but there were some personal odds and ends I'd prefer not to have lost.

4 MB worth of email that can't be replaced, when an online account closed without prior notice and ignored all correspondence about it.

My full set of rare (because they were only available through a mail-order club) Disneyland soundtracks and scores, which are worth a mint today, and which I had kept in mint condition. I had the whole set and my mother felt I was too old for them and gave them away.

My memories. I have a horribly spotty memory. I am particularly bad at retaining and recovering proper nouns and dates from my mental files.

My top-of-the-line (back in the day) Macintosh. I'd love to have a speedy, loaded, memory-packed Mac at home again.

My belief that people are essentially good / childhood innocence. I think people are essentially scared and cowardly and ill-tempered, and when someone behaves in a way that seems to prove me wrong, I'm thrilled. I'd rather assume that kindness and respect for others and decency were the norm rather than the pleasant exceptions. I also used to think that Mr. Policeman is always good, and that all adults know everything and all are nice to children and animals, especially pets, (because they can't adequately defend or take care of themselves) and that justice always prevails and evil is always punished and good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and that there's some sort of rhyme or reason / cause and effect theme in Life and that you get a good day's pay for a hard day's work ... and each of these beliefs has been disproved. But once upon a time I believed in those things as strongly as I believed in the Moster Under The Bed (not that I miss HIM!).

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2000

Milla, I lost my virginity when I was fifteen. It isn't over in England someplace, is it? I know a cute joke: Guy: "Am I the first man you've ever had?" Girl: "Hmmm, maybe. Where were you in 1982?"

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2000

Bubba, if you don't remember where you misplaced it, then I can't help ya. :)

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2000

The hand-made silver ring from Wales my aunt gave me when I was fifteen. I wore it to work at Kelly's Variety and was bagging that day -- it must have slipped into someone's bag, and I suspect that someone just kept it, which destroyed my faith in humanity for quite a while.

The lapis bear earring I've been missing since 1997. I'm still holding on to the other one in hopes that the first one will turn up.

My high school figure? Hell, I'd settle for the one I came to college with. In a fucking hearbeat.

I hate losing things. Hate it. It makes me more upset than anything, just about.

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2000

i miss my goldfish fred. i know its just a gold fish but i had him for 5 years and he mad me happy. m

mille why do you have a bad memory did you do alot of drugs when you were younger?

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2000

When I was a little kid, I wrote my own comic book, about a skateboarding super hero named Captain Immediately. Then, in college, my best friend and I would write comics for no audience other than ourselves. He wrote hilarious stories and came up with very interesting characters, and wrapped it all up in his super hero team, the Okay Five. I started two titles, wrote, drew, inked, colored and bound them, put a lot of work into them. One was Lightman (not in any way like the lame Darkman of the movies) and the other was Fins. Somewhere between childhood and college, I lost the first comic. And then somewhere between college and about 6-7 years ago, I lost all the others. I want them back.

I want back my sense that the world is BIG. I know, logically and from personal experience, that the world is a big place. But it feels so much smaller now that I'm an adult; I can drive or fly anywhere in a very short amount of time. I see places and distances in my old neighborhood whenever I'm back in Louisiana that were vast to me and my friends and that now appear shockingly tiny, even though the only thing that's changed is me.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2000

I have lost enough stuff that it would probably circle the earth...you could probably track me by it.

I've become resigned. Except for one thing. A silver ID bracelet.

My sister gave me a beautiful silver id bracelet when I turned 18. I loved that thing, but the clasp was dicey, and in moving from dorm to dorm in college, it somehow...went away. Might have been various roomies or the Evil Ex hocking the thing too, I don't know.

2 years ago, 10 years after the loss, my husband bought me one, and engraved lovely sentimental things on it for me. I love it. But I still miss the one from my sister.

I mean, it was from my SISTER. I adore my big sister.

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2001

In response to Kethrai, that was so nice of your husband to get you a new bracelet! I understand why you wish you had the old one from your big sister, but that really touched me about your husband. It really seems like he understands.

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2001

He does. He's a major peach. (For the record, I haven't taken off the one he gave me since he gave it to me--this one goes EVERYWHERE-- shower and all. It's NOT GETTING AWAY!!!)

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2001

Happiness. Just plain ol happiness.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2001

Time. There never seems to be enough time in the day. Especially time for myself.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2001

My f-in' T pass. I was precariously budgeted this month, since I got the new job and would now be more and paid twice a month and all, I figured I'd be ok paying off all my overdue bills finally. Which is fine, but it meant when I went to get groceries on Saturday they would wipe me out until payday this Thursday. Which again, would be FINE, if I hadn't lost my T pass in grocery store. Which leaves me with $6, $1 of which I have to use to get home from the grocery store, and the rest of which I have to use to get to and from work somehow. I think I can walk, but it's going to take forever. And it's cold.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Scrnwrt, the last time I lost my T pass, I went mental (as it was the second day of month) and during my blustering, obscenity laden speech upon discovering its absence, a co-worker said, "Why don't you call the MBTA to see if someone has turned it in?" And, someone had. And, because I actually signed the damn thing that month, they returned it to me.

Hope they find yours, because it is too damn cold to be outside in Boston today.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

You signed it? I never sign mine. I'm calling the C line lost and found, though. (I was only on the train and in Trader Joe's after last using it.) We'll see. I'm a little surprised it's taken me almost three years in Boston to lose one, actually.

Next month I am putting it on my keyring.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

What's a T pass??? I'm stumped.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Maybe a T pass is a bus (or tube) pass. (In other words, I don't know, but I like guessing games.)

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

The T is the Boston subway system. (Short for, for some reason, MBTA, which actually is the subway, bus, and commuter rail). A T pass is a monthly pass.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

I've lost my University ID card, which I've never used before, but I'm still pissed about it because now I can't check out library books and I had planned to.

And I looked really good in the picture. I mean really really good. What are the odds of that happening again? Plus, the picture was taken about 15 pounds ago.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

At the university I work at (and I use the term "work" loosely, as this is my 89th post of the day), our ID photos are on file somewhere. So if we lose 'em, they just reissue us another one with the same picture. I take it that it's not the same for you, Robyn? Take solace in the fact that if you take a crappy ID picture here, it will annoy/embarass you the entire time you're here. Whereas you have the chance to surprise yourself with a new, cute photo.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Milla, you were right. WOOHOOOO! And, scrnwrt, since I know what that is now....I'm sorry you lost it. That must suck. If it makes you feel any better, I have $10 until Thursday. Well, unless I get my income tax refund back...Let us pray...hehe

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

*Milla dances the "I got the answer right on Jeopardy!" dance*

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

I lost my virginity. James

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

James, maybe if you call the T-Pass people they might be able to tell you if someone found your virginity and is sending it back to you.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Question 1: Do you really want it back, James?

Question 2: Did you remember to sign the back of it?

Question 3: Have you looked behind the sofa? ;)

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Shanna--you get an income tax refund?! *jealous* *scraping together pennies to pay for Yet More Ramen and income tax owed*

-- Anonymous, February 12, 2001

Maybe he forgot to sign it. Honestly, James, sign it next time, because someone's probably out running around with YOUR virginity and there ain't nothin' you can do about it. :-)

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

I Found My ID Card.

This is just butt eerie. I've looked everywhere, and there it was, in my desk drawer? No way. One of you guys did it, didn't you?

Thanks to the patron saint of lost things. I can't remember which one that is.

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

Yes, Milla. Have a kid and get a nifty tax refund. Worked for MEEE! Robyn, speaking of that Saint, when I was in high school, my boyfriend's mom would run around saying some long-ass chant type thingy to the saint whenever she lost something. And of course, now that I need to know his name, I can't remember it for anything. *Grumbles*

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of travelers, of pregnant and barren women, and of the poor. He's invoked for recovery of lost articles, and for persons in danger of shipwreck.

No, I am not Catholic. :)

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

P.S. Go here for St. Anthony stuff: http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/franciscan/anthony/anthony.html

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

Geez, Milla. You're right. Now, I remember. St Anthony, St Anthony, blah, blah, blah. You're a genius.

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

I remember now Milla. I left it in the recesses of my mind. That happens when you get older. You forget things that happened too long ago. Whew! (giggle) Yeah I'd like it back especially if I could lose it like that again. Yeehaw!!! James

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

Here's a saint index: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm

Nathan and I have used it, and it was brought up over on Three Way Action a couple of days ago, so I remembered it.

Thanks, Milla, for letting me be lazy about giving thanks. I'm not Catholic either (yet), but I dig the saints. Francis of Assisi is my favorite.

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

I'm delighted that I actually remembered something shortly after it was asked, as opposed to waking up at 3 AM wondering why I am thinking about St. Anthony! That sort of thing usually happens when I have forgotten a proper noun...I'll be struggling to remember someone's name even as I'm picturing them clear as day, then I'll give up, and then (while I'm washing my hair or something) the answer will come to me but by then I'll have forgotten who asked the question and why it was important.

I think I have Oldtimer's Disease, which is also known as CRS... Too bad I'm not actually old yet. (I must be a prodigy! I'm ahead of the curve!)

-- Anonymous, February 14, 2001