Items disappearing in our homes is not absolutely unheard of. At our home though, it is the type of items disappearing that dangle the possibility the missing items are a bit outside the norm. Socks lost in the laundry are one thing but here are items that are harder to explain in their sudden absence.

The first missing objects are multiples of the same thing. Brace yourself. Towels. Warned you it is a stunning theft. Yes, I wrote theft. At the end of the day when laundry is finished all the towels will not fit in the shelves and come sunrise gone. Poof. Like magic.

We use a lot of towels in our home. I can literally tell you how many of each color we have and especially the ones that were wedding presents. Even as I tap-tap the keyboard in a quiet house with no lights burning there is some thief with a towel fetish preparing to swipe some more. Our poor towels are innocently laying as bait for the Towel Thief.

Yes, yes it is true. Especially the wedding towels are old. Twenty-four years to be exact. Yes, they are showing their age. Even some that are five-years-old are showing wear and tear. Every dried load has me snipping loosed binding. Stray threads and lint haveto be picked off them with the tacky lint tape. (Do you think super glue would hold those threads together?)

The Ziploc filled with rubber bands. Not just ordinary rubber bands. BIG, wide-stretching, red rubber bands. There is one used to keep the trash bag from submitting to gravity and sliding into the bottom of each can in our home. My urge to always be prepared meant the package I bought had enough so when they break we can replace them at that moment.

These missing have not even put into duty yet and they are AWOL. Are the cats planning to weave them together and make a bungie cord? Is that what the latest construction like noises are from our daughter’s room?

Did perhaps my nephew and niece discovered the bands and decide to send their stuffed animals over the shelf cliff for their own bungie jump and it backfired? The animals went down and did not come back up?

My favorite sleep shirts. Always tossed into the delicate laundry basket after every shower one week they did not return in the clean clothes. Nor were they in one of the other separating hampers, behind the baskets, under the bed, mixed in with the dewindling towel supply or behind the washer or dryer.

Did they dissolve in the washer? Admittedly, they were in that comfortable stage of wear. But neither had holes (well one did but I sewed it up). None were fraying.

Which brings the road back to the washing machine again. There have been some loud bangs from it. When questioned about these noises she told us it was a little twisted indigestion because the towels were not distributed evenly in the tub. Again, socks, even underwear I could buy being “eaten” by the washing machine but entire nightshirts? Unless the washer hides the portal to the Land of Unfound Stuff I have to rule it out here.

Were is this stuff going? Simple, remember the magician I cleared earlier? I take it back. Yes, a magician unable to get work during this pandemic is keeping his skills sharp by levitating odd items out of our home. When we have finally turned out the lights Mr. Magician must pull up in the drive-way and with great concentration pull off his hiest for the night.

Probably using the towels as rags to wash and dry his coffinlike box he uses to saw his assistant in two in. The rubber bands Mr. Magic must be using to practice some magic trick involving the rabbit who is sick of being pulled out of that top hat. Maybe he needed some night shirts to replace the ones the rabbit used as bedding?

Again, it is quite the mystery, is it not? But, it is bedtime for me. Top of the list for when I wake? Investigate washer!

—-Donna