LittlePeople Mary: The Patron Saint of Lost Objects

So the other day Mike sent me a text from work and asked me if I had seen his wedding ring on the night stand. He had apparently put it there at some time the day before and forgot to retrieve it. After tearing apart the night stand and sifting through our pile of pillows that every properly decorated bed must have on hand, I came up empty handed. Now if something goes missing in a house and no one claims to have touched it, you blame the dog. If you don't have a dog, you blame Owen (if by chance you don't have an Owen you blame the trixy gremlins).

I wrote Mike back and told him that I couldn't find the ring anywhere and that Owen, not unlike Bilbo Baggins, had probably come across the new round and shinny object and pocketed it (This is an appropriate comparison since Owen closely resembles a hobbit in height, weight, foot size, and appetite).

So with it determined that Owen was the culprit we could now narrow down our places to search to just every nook and cranny in the house, the entire backyard, the garbage, and Owen's digestive tract. Translation: We have about as good of a shot at finding Mike's ring as you would getting change for a $100 at the mall cookie store.

Beyond looking at the night stand area one more time, we really didn't even look for the ring since we had no idea where to even start. "You didn't even TRY to find Mike's ring?!!" you are screaming at this post. Look, if someone knocked on your door and said that a titanium cheerio worth $75 might be hidden somewhere in your house would you be jumping at the chance to rip open couch cushions, dump out and sift through every toy, and inspect each dirty diaper? No, you go back to making lasagna.

Not willing to give up every effort at finding the ring, Mike and I decided we'd at least discuss some of the more probable spots it could be. In the end I said it was probably with our LittlePeople Mary, wherever she was. Once a focal part of our lovely plastic manger scene, poor LittlePeople Mary didn't even make it until Christmas before going missing (she was subsequently replaced with an extra angel which did nothing but confuse Abby. "wait, so Jesus' mommy has wings?"). Again, we supposed that Owen had carried Mary off somewhere for safekeeping. Our inability to find Mary after months of conscious search did little to bolster our faith that we would ever find the ring. So, as I mentioned, and as households often do, we supposed that all our lost objects must be stockpiled in that one impossible to find spot, never to be seen again (Mike uses this theory with his approach to losing pens: if he loses enough pens the lost spot will eventually begin to overflow and reveal itself).

With nothing left to do, and in the true spirit of hundreds of Friend and Ensign articles, I said a little prayer (Mike later revealed to me that almost playfully he had done the same thing).

Later that evening I settled down in my favorite chair and decided to watch some TV. Having cleaned up the chaos a bit I asked Mike if he had by chance checked in the thin dusty space between our TV and armoire since I had earlier found a shoe back there. Mike got a flashlight and, after fumbling around a little bit, turned around with a majestic "Ahhhhh", holding forth none other than LittlePeople Mary!! I got really excited because with Mike's rather overdramatic buildup and presentation I thought he'd found the ring, but to find LittlePeople Mary after all these months was still an unexpected delight.

We got a pretty good laugh out of it and Mike continued to search around the TV for the ring but had no luck. Before giving up Mike remembered that Owen loves to play with the buttons on our DVR. Lifting up the DVR, Mike revealed the resting place of the one true ring! We couldn't believe it. We found the impossiblely lost ring with no real effort that same day. All the weird beliefs and stories about lost objects were true: Less than an hour after concluding that the ring was probably with Mary, we found that it was. All of your lost objects really do all funnel away to that one impossible to find little stash. After a while that spot begins to overflow (the shoe) and reveal itself. And praying for lost objects works! (is that just like a free category where God is always willing to help humble Latter-day Saints find small sentimental objects? The Church is true brothers and sisters.)