Randomly on a Wednesday

1. I am on my way to Squam.

2. I came the wrong way. I came the way that Joe thought was right and that Julie the GPS thought was on crack. Usually, Joe is right and Julie is on crack, so I did it his way.

3. Julie the GPS was so violently opposed to Joe’s plan that even when I was crossing the border she was still telling me to make a U-turn. Yeah verily even as I was on the bridge she was imploring me to turn around.

4. Julie was right. Joe was wrong. We’re just going to leave it there, because I have a really long drive ahead of me today.

5. This morning when I woke up in my hotel room, I couldn’t find my bra for 10 minutes. There was absolutely no reason for this. I didn’t unpack last night, so it really couldn’t be mixed in with my stuff – I didn’t take it off until I was falling into bed, and I don’t recall swinging it around my head nine times and then letting it fly. The room was perfectly tidy, the bed has that wooden skirt thing underneath so that you can’t kick a bra under… there were only so many places to look, and I even looked ridiculous places. Behind the bed. Under the chairs. Places it really couldn’t be, and still I didn’t find it.

After about 10 minutes, I started to get a really upset feeling. I started to think that the only explanation for this was that someone had snuck into my room and taken it. I started thinking about how weird that would be. My computer, my purse, everything is right there, and this person comes in while I’m sleeping and takes my bra? Just my bra? As I became surer and surer that this was what happened, I began to feel two things. Violated (because it was too late for scared) and filled with regret that it was such a crappy bra.  I can’t explain that second part, but as I realized that this person had stood in my hotel room while I was sleeping, I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do now? Tell someone? Who?

I made myself a cup of coffee and started digging through my suitcase for a different top. One that made it less obvious that I was bra-less.  I decided I would tell the front desk what had happened as I left, and then never, ever come back to this place. Then I thought that maybe I had a responsibility to call the police, because even though I was completely and totally uninjured and just freaked out, maybe this was the sort of thing that could escalate and I’ve watched enough Law and Order: SVU to know that.  I took a deep breath, and decided that before I did anything else, I would have my coffee and a bit of a knit. It’s always a good place to start when I’m confused and there’s no imminent danger, and this was certainly the case here. Worst case scenario some guy is cuddling with my crappy bra. 

I reached into my purse to get my knitting, and my hand touched something funny.  I looked in, and there is my bra. Neatly folded with the straps wrapped around it and tucked right into my purse beside my knitting and wallet.  I can’t tell you about the relief that swept over me. I put it on, and sat down for that little knit.

6. I was so glad that it hadn’t been stolen that it was a full five minutes before I started wondering what kind of a woman folds up her bra and then puts it in her purse? I assure you, I’m a take it off and drop in on the floor/suitcase/chair type. The purse wasn’t even on my chair where I thought I’d dropped it. It was across the room.

7. Now I think someone broke in and tidied my stuff.

8. That or I’m losing my mind and this is like when I found my keys in the freezer.

9. #8 is really more likely.

10. For sure.

1,087 thoughts on “Randomly on a Wednesday

  1. You have your bra at all. That’s a victory right there, no? (Also, the last time I went to the US, the GPS kept trying to get us to avoid the toll bridge, and add 8 hours to the trip instead.)

  2. You know, I really hate the attitude that the GPS gets with me when I’m taking a slightly more scenic route than it wants me to. It gets all “recalculating” in that huffy voice. She’s such a jerk.
    Enjoy the rest of your trip!

  3. Ummm… Steph? Two words – “Spare bra.”
    The fact that we know how much you love wearing a bra, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when you always speak of “the” bra. You crack me up!

  4. Our GPS hadn’t been updated and we were on our way to Biloxi, Mississippi. We were on an almost-brand-new-road which she hadn’t learned, and I swear she had a nervous breakdown because we wouldn’t listen to her.
    She just became more and more impatient–dare I say “shriller”?–and finally went into a real snit and shut down completely. We pulled her plug and put her in the glove box until we were back in our home state.
    We have GOT to give her a name.
    And hilarious about the bra.

  5. You were obviously on knitting auto-pilot. Your hand felt the bra straps and decided it was yarn hanging off the ball so you wrapped it back up all neat and tidy (the way any knitter would) and put it neatly away in your knitting bag where your knitting belongs.
    I can almost hear our GPS, Mandy, sighing when we don’t go where she wants us too. I love the “make a U-turn” command.

  6. Ah yess,the joys of travel…I’m always totally confused when waking in a hotel room. Coffee helps; that may be coffee’s higher calling right there. DH has been hinting that maybe I need a GPS in the Red Menace; I can only imagine the fun that would follow.

  7. I am exactly the type of woman who wraps up her bra and puts it in her purse. There is no danger of kicking it anywhere or losing it in the giant pile of bedding that invariably falls off the edge of the bed in the morning.
    I think it could really catch on. . .

  8. Hilarious! I thought for sure that you were already wearing it and forgot! Just like looking everywhere for your glasses and then realizing they’re on top of your head 🙂

  9. My GPS is Betty. As in B*tchin’ Betty. And like you, my husband is usually right and Betty is usually wrong, but when he’s not with me I tend to follow Betty since she will usually get me there even if it isn’t the most efficient route.
    Good luck with your driving today, and may you have no problem finding your bra for the rest of the trip.

  10. I kept waiting through the whole thing for you to discover that you were still wearing it. Reality (if you can call it that) was so much better.
    You can’t make this stuff up, can you?

  11. I lost one black clog in a hotel room the same way. A size 11, black clog–ONE CLOG. Only, I never found it–same bed story, no way to kick it underneath. Having had that experience, I’d go with the “someone snuck in and tidied” scenario. Because I NEVER FOUND THE CLOG.

  12. The coffee is too hot to sip much less snort, but I was about to snort the coffee all over the keyboard. But yes, I would have been looking for the bra.
    My GPS is Gypsy and she is not always correct, needs to be updated.
    You are hilarious as always.

  13. I’ve learned to not trust the GPS, nor to trust Rob. I will go on Google Maps and play with the route until *I* am happy with it, and THEN we take off. 🙂 Granted, I do a lot of really long drives over the course of a year (Rob lives 14 hours away), and we hit most of the big knitting events within driving distance (Maryland S&W, Rhinebeck, Stitches Midwest, Twist, etc.)
    Glad you found your bra 😉

  14. Hubby gave me a GPS for a gift, I don’t get lost,much. On the other hand hubby gets lost going from here to work , we live in a very small town and it’s a straight shot there and home. I use the GPS for speed control, and if I want to find a new way somewhere. The “wee” people take things they know we need, I am still looking for my glasses.

  15. Too funny!! I bought Christmas gifts early one for my kids at least 20 years ago and hid them, and still haven’t found them, so you’re way ahead of the ball game as far as I’m concerned!! Hope your day gets better and you have great time! We won’t speak of all that ran through your mind (I’ve done that, too)!!

  16. I was on the ‘Bet she’s wearing it’ team 🙂
    At least, this time, you weren’t on the wrong side of a locked door, wearing only it and undies. [I love that story – makes me ROFL every time!]

  17. Our GPS is Dorothy, as in the Wizard of Oz. She sometimes gets lost, will eventually find her way, and is sometimes just “Dotty.”
    A colleague of mine woke up one morning and absolutely could not find his running gear in his hotel room. Turned out that the night before he had carefully folded his shorts and t-shirt, placed them on his running shoes, and then had locked it all in the in-room safe.
    Good thing he had remembered the combo at least!

  18. The gps in our rental car in Iceland tried to send us over a dirt road and over a glacier. We turned it off and used a map, instead. Good luck!

  19. Oh goodness, you had me laughing so hard I am crying.. at my desk.. in my big corporate office… and my my boss stopped by to asked me a question about our multi-million dollar construction submission.
    Good times!

  20. ROFL! But, uh, Steph, exactly how many beers did you have last night???
    Seriously, sorry about Julie being on crack. My GPS was once screaming at me for traveling from Vermont to New Jersey by going south on the interstate. The GPS insisted I should go through Montreal!!! Maybe there’s some force at the Canadian/US border that messes them up.
    Have a safe trip and a great time at Squam!

  21. What does it say about me that I can TOTALLY relate to your bra story? Only, I’m a 36DD. I COULDN’T have gone braless. I would’ve had to resort to binding myself with toilet paper or something.

  22. I’ve been in the process of opening a restaurant so storing a bra in my purse makes total sense to me in a world where nothing else is currently making sense! LOL Thanks for making me chuckle this morning. Oh, and I’m so glad you found your bra. Now if we could just find the minds we’ve lost, right?

  23. Earlier this year we were in another state at a fiber festival. As I dressed for the last day of the show I couldn’t find my black bra to wear with my black top. I knew I had packed it because I wore it two days before with my black dress. I began to have that icky notion that while we were at the festival the maid tidied our room and stole my black bra. It is a pretty bra. All day I thought about my missing bra, debating about calling the hotel and asking if they had a maid who wore a 34A.
    When we were home and I unloaded my backpack the black bra was still missing. The following week when I went into town I bought several new bras and panties, because I discovered that several pairs of those were missing too.
    The week after that when I was tidying up the van I found a plastic grocery bag – which held what felt like some pretty soft trash. Said trash was my dirty laundry – including the black bra and panties.
    My husband still teases me about my missing bra and panties. If one black bra goes missing again I won’t freak out – because I have already bought a spare.

  24. if I had a nickel for every time I tried to put the milk or o.j. back in the cabinet and my glass in the fridge…
    A while ago my friend and I went to southern New Jersey for an event, and on our way back up to New York needed to use the GPS to detour for lunch. Something glitched, though, and the GPS decided we were somewhere in Canada. It was tracking our motion correctly, could tell when we turned and what direction we were going… but not *where*. Over the course of our drive the time remaining to our destination climbed to nearly 11 hours, constantly recalculating, estimating our position on various tiny drives and Forest Access roads.
    We made it nearly to Sudbury on the map before giving up and turning the thing off.

  25. My twenty-something daughter, in the early weeks of working at her first real job called one morning to tell me she’d forgotten to put on a bra, only to realize her oversight once she took off her winter coat at the office. We laughed and laughed, she raced out to quick buy a new one and I hung up thinking how, what with the unrelenting nature of gravity and all, there is no way I’ll ever need to worry about making a mistake like that in what remains of this lifetime!

  26. Just a thought — dump the blah colored bra for something that isn’t the color of hotel linen or your purse lining — so it sticks out. It’s bound to go missing again.
    And then you’ll have 2 bras!

  27. Hilarious, Stephanie! I’m guessing you place as much importance on your bra as your knitting and subconsciously placed both in a “safe” place! It’s our subconscious that screws us up from time to time!
    (BTW, my GPS is “Betty” too…”the B@#$% on the Dashboard”. I actually got her stammering and crashed her systems once when I refused to take a recommended U-turn! It’s a game now!!)

  28. Girl, it’s time for you to go to a nice department store with a trained saleswoman who can fit you with an EXCELLENT bra. One that fits you so well, you will almost forget you have it on.
    (This IS possible!)
    You lost your bra because you subconsciously don’t like your bra. I mean YOU are the one who called it ‘crappy’. Who wants to locate a crappy bra?
    Find a bra you love. Then you will ALWAYS know where your bra is.
    Oh yeah, PS, it will most likely cost you three times what you think it should. But you won’t care, because you will love it.
    😉

  29. I changed the voice on my GPS to an Australian woman. She still gets irritated with me, but now it’s cute.

  30. I’m sitting here in my cubicle trying not to laugh and one of my coworkers just checked to see if I was choking…
    I have lost a bra in a hotel room before. After that, I always pack a spare. Saves time in the morning.
    Oh, and my GPS is named Ellie, which is short for LMB. That stands for Loud-Mouthed B*tch. 🙂

  31. I first had to stop laughing so hard I was crying as I read this. The images you conjure up are priceless. I needed a good laugh like this.
    I recently had such a major argument with Siri on my cell phone that she is no longer speaking to me. If I didn’t need my phone so badly I would have tossed it out the window on my last long trip. Once she apolgizes for being so curt, then I might consider letting her into my world once again. Until then….not so much.
    I don’t know what Squam is (I will google it) but I hope it’s wonderful and that you have a great time.
    Anita

  32. I sometimes put my keys in the refrigerator on purpose. It’s usually when I’ve gone out to dinner with a friend, and then back to their place. I rarely eat everything in my meal, and I used to forget my leftovers at friends’ houses. I started putting my keys on top of my leftovers in their fridge – I won’t get very far without them, and then I remember to take my leftovers!

  33. What’s worse is when you spend 10 minutes looking for it, etc., sit down to knit, etc. then realize it’s sitting right on top of everything right in front of your face. Been there, done THAT.

  34. Note to self: never read the Yarn Harlot while on the (unmuted) phone waiting for a telephonic court hearing to start. Difficult to explain the snorts.

  35. That’s ok.
    I spent ages once looking for a bra which I was… um… still wearing.
    In my own defense, we’d driven a long way, arrived at the hotel with 4 cranky kids, and by the time we got them settled I just kind of fell into bed.
    But in a purse seems totally reasonable. 🙂

  36. ROFL – no seriously, I’m trying not to snort and I can’t laugh out loud or else my students would think I really am crazy. This brought tears to my eyes because the older I get, the more crap like this happens to me… Glad I’m not alone.

  37. woman to woman, and from experience, sounds like there’s an internal GPS at work called “Perimenopause”. Makes ‘Julie’ seem sane in comparison, right?!

  38. I’m with Connie. The older I get, the more crap like this happens to me. And to people around me… It’s very puzzling.

  39. This reminds me of the time my sister couldn’t find her dentures and was sure she had dropped them into the toilet and inadvertently flushed them away. She called the superintendent to come with the snake to retrieve them, but no luck. The next day she found them in her purse, wrapped up in a kleenex.

  40. After snorting my way through the post, I had to sheepishly remember the day I COULD NOT find the loaner car keys (mine had been rear ended and was in the body shop) and finally had to call a locksmith and get new keys made and…expensive.
    2 weeks later the keys came tumbling out of a cereal box I was using to pour a bowl for one of the kids. Who ate that cereal EVERY DAY.
    Gremlins. I am convinced of it. You just had a purse gremlin with a wicked sense of humor.

  41. Sooo envious you’re off to Squam, especially on this warm Sept. day. I’ve never been, but hope to make it before I die. As for GPS, I don’t use it, prefering a map and a live navigator in the passenger seat. Have fun and be sure to let us enjoy the experience vicariously!

  42. Thanks for the laugh… I really needed it today.
    This made me think of two things…
    1- Driving from Pittsburgh to Maryland to visit my sister and her family who were on vacation.
    Long drive. With my Mother. In a van.
    GSP repeatedly telling us to make a “sharp right” while we were in the middle of the Bay Bridge.
    We think my brother in law programmed the GPS but can not prove it.
    2- you are not alone or we are both crazy. I too was once,after searching for a very long time, stunned to find my bra neatly folded in my purse.

  43. Oh goodness, the bra thing happened to my dear mum only she never did find it because she arrived at her hotel not wearing the bra. But she did call her own mother all the way in the Netherlands to which Oma responded “And what do you want me to do about it?”.
    Mom finally just went to a Victoria Secret and got some crap bra but at least she had one. Bless.

  44. One of many reasons why I love you and your blog. You make me seem so much more normal than I think I am.lol Relax and enjoy, knit and enjoy the day.

  45. I don’t have a GPS.(Now I know I really don’t want one, ever.) I prefer to read a map and orienteer.
    But didn’t you drive to Squam just 3 months ago and make it just fine? Different route this time?
    Bras have only become important as I age and gravity has taken its toll.
    I hope your stay in Squam is lovely.

  46. Steph Steph Steph … 🙂 We love ya. So glad you found it. And whoever said it was just like a knitter to wrap the straps up around the bra, so true. Enjoy Squam!

  47. I am reminded of the time you stopped the MRI guy and said “This is actually safe, right?” and he didn’t even answer, just sighed and said “GOD I hate ‘House'”
    I think we need to get your television viewing under control. Like, six months of Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice for you.

  48. Our GPS “lulu” is mostly off and in the glove compartment. We never listen to her anyway, and she’s usually right, but we refuse to believe she knows better than we do! Have fun at squam — wish I could be there!

  49. Classic. You just need sleep; when I’m short on sleep I can’t find anything, no matter how close it is or how carefully (or weirdly) I put it away. And I am going right out and name my GPS.

  50. I laughed out loud through this entire post. Sorry you had such bra-nxiety, but I appreciate your candor in sharing it. I hate to tell you this, but if you think you’re losing your mind now, you’ll at least be prepared attitudinally for menopause.

  51. I have also left my keys in the freezer, and have spent all day looking for things that I have neatly put away. Because “put away” was, in my mind, the absolute very most unlikely place for them to be. So, at least you are not alone?

  52. one time, i lost my driver’s license. looked for days. i finally thought i had left it at the bank or the bar (the latter is the most likely) and gave up to my fate of having to brave the DMV. and then my husband called me into the kitchen, where he had found my license in the sink under a pile of dirty dishes. there are a lot of morals to this story, but the short of it (besides the fact that i need to rethink my housekeeping skills…)is that i know how you feel.

  53. When I was in college about 23 years ago my roommate and I were terrible about forgetting to lock the door to our dorm room. I really think the only thing anyone would have wanted were the little debbie cakes. One day she and I got back to the room about the same time and walk in to find! Our room – wonderfully cleaned! With a note from my brother and one of our friends – who had come to visit, found the door unlocked and were going to mess the room up to teach us a lesson – but the room was already so trashed, there was nothing they could do outside of turning the beds over – so they cleaned it instead! Ha! One of my very favorite school memories!

  54. I totally thought someone tidied your bra for you too but there is something about knitting that calls to items so that you “lose” them. I can’t tell you how many lost things I’ve found in my knitting bag. I don’t know if I’m unconciously putting things away there because I put my knitting there or if it is because my knitting is always so nearby.

  55. My husband and I used to call our phone’s old GPS “the angry lady.” We thought this was mean, so we renamed her Mrs. Copplepot. My husband’s phone updated and the GPS voice changed. We renamed her Ms. Copplepot, Mrs. Copplepot’s daughter. Due to some glitch with his phone, she doesn’t always talk to him, and tell him where to go. I find this hilarious. I got a new phone recently, and for some reason, my phone’s GPS voice is different (we both have android phones). She has a sultry voice, so we call her Ms. Sexypot.

  56. We KNOW what kind of woman would neatly fold up her bra and tuck it safely into her purse alongside her wallet and knitting. One who only has 1 bra and doesn’t want to lose it, hence the storing it safely next to her valuables. Just sayin’

  57. Not to worry. Putting something in the wrong place is not a sign of Alzheimer’s. it is only when you have the object in hand and can’t remember what to do with it are you allowed to worry.

  58. No chance at all of me ever losing my bra; and when travelling I take every bra I own unless I’m only going to be gone for 2 nights. Seriously, where would it hide?
    No GPS for me either, I find the one in my son’s truck supremely irritating. I often drive over vast tracts of this very large country, sometimes alone and sometimes leading a small convoy. We use maps, as we all have lots of map-reading experience; and we plot our trip before leaving home. If in convoy, we have walkie-talkies so we can communicate car to car, without having to pull over to confer, or do the unthinkable, forbidden act of talking on a cell phone while driving. The walkie talkies just sit on the console and are voice-activated so it’s all hands-free. The only times we have become lost is in big unfamiliar cities at night, where the landmarks seem to disappear in a welter of coloured lights; or on one memorable occasion when we took a small detour and after we got back to the main highway, the road seems to have closed up behind us, as we have been that way several times since and never again seen the road we detoured on.

  59. So funny! As someone who lost her wallet and found it MONTHS later in the freezer, I am so thankful that you shared that story. It makes me feel, maybe not normal, but certainly in good company.

  60. I won’t buy a GPS unit. Have had friends who I was meeting get lost with GPS. I use Google directions and always reach my destination. It does involve printing on paper, though.
    As for the bra….that is too funny. You must have undressed before you put your knitting away and exhaustion forced you to combine the two items.
    Wish that I could go braless even for a few minutes. At my age gravity has wreaked havoc and I could never be seen in public without being lifted and separated.

  61. I was astounded you wore the bra the previous day, intended to wear it this day and, gave a crap about where the thing was… lol. The only things I know about you are from this blog but I think of you as a casual dresser who often doesn’t don a bra. Squam is apparently more formal than I realized. Thanks for the morning laugh! Have a safe drive.

  62. Welcome to late middle age. I cannot tell you how often I have to search for things that I had in my hand just a minute ago. (I prefer to think this is typical of late middle age rather than symptomatic of early onset Alzheimers.)

  63. So okay, in this case it’s most likely you briefly lost your mind, but my clothes have been stolen before – my undies were stolen during rehearsal for a theatrical production at a winery (TMI but in a body suit = undies off) and a tank top, shorts and undies were stolen out of my load of laundry in the dryer at an apartment complex. Too weird. Glad you found the bra, though!

  64. I was expecting to read that you had already put your bra on. I’m glad it wasn’t that.
    I don’t put my neatly folded bra in my purse unless I’ve gone to an afternoon doctor’s appointment that required its removal and I’m heading for home. The girls get to fly free there.

  65. A few years back I went to meet my traveling salesman husband in a motel as a surprise. I hung my new, lacy bra on the doorknob to entice him in (the desk ladies were giggling over the romantic idea) but when he arrived it wasn’t there. Turns out the housekeeper thought it had been left in the room so she made off with it. When I called the desk to get it back the “romance” ladies had left and a high school boy was on duty. He suggested I wait until the next morning when Housekeeping came back but there was no way I’d put my 38DDD’s free in a t-shirt so I made him go get it. My husband was laughing so hard he made me answer the door to retrieve it from the blushing red desk clerk. The evening was still a success but there’ll be no more sexy gestures in hotel hallways from this woman. Evidently bras and hotel rooms don’t mix well.
    Glad you’re properly corralled for Squam. Have fun!

  66. Seriously, I’m laughing so hard I’m crying…needed that today as my 14 month old decided to take her poopy diaper off in her crib….

  67. If you were to find some of these gremlins that come and clean up after you, I would appreciate you giving them my address. I could really use them around here, even if they do think my bra belongs in my purse.

  68. LOL at your hilarious post and at some of the comments. I’m glad I’m not the only one who found her iron in the fridge once. I have (ahem) lost so many items in my house – and had to buy a new one – that I’m pretty sure I now have 2 of everything. 🙂

  69. I laughed OUT LOUD as I read your bra story! And thought about our trip to Prague a few years ago. Had read a lot about how pick pocketry, thievery, and taxi driver shenanigans were the order of the day in Prague, so was eyeing everyone I saw suspiciously when we landed. I’d read that the airport, in particular, was a particularly bad place for people up to no good. We got to our hotel, I unpacked my bag, and…no bras. I’m an organized packer, and put my undies in one zippered pocket, my bras in another, etc. etc. I KNEW I’d packed my bras. Well I cussed the Prague citizenry up one side and down the other, calling them effing perverts, and other more colorful language, as I pondered trying to find a bra in a foreign department store where the sizing was even more confusing than the American system. The next day, I was putting something back in my suitcase, and lo and behold, there was a zippered pocket I had not unzipped. And there were the bras. So I’d like to assure everyone that there is, in fact, no nefarious plot to steal “our” bras.

  70. OMG, totally ROFL so much my dogs thought someone was trying to break in.
    I blame all such moments on menopause!

  71. I’m with you on both the GPS and the bra. My things are always vanishing mysteriously. I come by this naturally as I’m the daughter of a woman who once found a used kitchen washcloth in the freezer, stiff with frost.

  72. bahahahah. This post, and the comments! Hilarious! I’m sitting at the front desk of the museum I work at giggling (thankfully there is no one here to hear me!)
    On the GPS note, Google Maps app for iPhone is the only thing I’ll use. Any other GPS just isn’t update frequently enough. For instance, one time I asked the built in GPS in my mom’s car to locate grocery stores near me. The closest one it listed was 10+ miles away, even though I was sitting two parking lots down from a Meijer!!

  73. I found my box of cereal in the fridge once. I think I must have been really half-asleep the morning before… (And a couple of times I poured the water for the tea onto the bowl of cereal. Don’t do this: you have instant mush.)

  74. I find my bras in all kinds of strange places. I think they live private lives of their own when we aren’t actually wearing them.

  75. I have enough working experience with computers (as in back to the early 70’s) to not trust them completely. When I travel I refer to a map and trust my directional instincts to keep me going the right way. On some routes I can even mentally re-route if necessary. Maybe you should invest in a few spare bras and keep one in a pocket in each suitcase.

  76. thank you for the giggle … I was expecting you to say that you had put it on and forgotten about it…so glad that you protected your wallet with your bra instead!!

  77. We have a name for that, you put it in a “safe place”, so as not to lose it. There is a rule in our house – NEVER put anything in a “safe place”. You’ll never find it again. 🙂 Glad you found it, and on a selfish note, it provided you with a very funny story to tell us. 🙂

  78. Carol, my own GPS, tends to have a very stable head on her, er, shoulders. I trust her implicitly (not ridiculously… I don’t drive off cliffs or down one-way streets the wrong way, but otherwise…). However, as much as I trust and depend on her, I take *great* pride in talking back to her. Do you do that with Julie? Talk back to her, I mean? I’m also, still, bummed that Carol doesn’t tell me to “slide right/left” anymore (it’s been over a year since she started saying “slight” correctly).
    Why’re you going to Squam? It’s just a couple hours from my house. It’s bloody hot today, but tomorrow should be quite nice.

  79. I might just be the sort of woman described in section 6, as purse jumped to mind fairly quickly as a possibility while I was reading about the search. I can somehow see myself doing that too, maybe while tucking away my knitting for the night after a long drive. I often, while travelling, put stuff that I don’t want to forget the next day on top of my purse, so it wouldn’t take much for me to absent-mindedly tuck it inside the purse instead.

  80. I love you Stephanie! I can always count on you for a good laugh.I once had a GPS unit asked if I wanted another destination when I apparently ticked her off by meandering through a mall parking lot looking for a restaurant I hasn’t asked her about. First time I ever had one that snarky.

  81. Hang in there. You will make it to Squam and there you will relax. We all do odd things when we travel to different places and we should have stopped driving hours ago. You need to stop sooner tonight and you need to relax at Squam.
    I can’t believe it was neatly folded when you finally found it.

  82. Like others, I’ve put a bag of frozen veg in the cupboard and a wood spoon in the freezer. My giggle concerning stolen clothing: when I was abt 6 years old, my family of five was on a car trip, towing a small sailboat. Late one afternoon, one of the trailer’s tires went. We had no spare & were still several miles from any town. We hid the trailer (best we could) in a stand of trees. Next day, having purchased a new tire, we retrieved the trailer. Only to find that the suitcase that had been strapped on top of the trailer was gone. “Ah well,” said Mom. “Those folks didn’t make out too well. All they got was a 30 year old suitcase and one set of dirty underwear in five different sizes.”

  83. How cool that you and so many of your commenters name their GPSs. Ours is Missy–as in don’t get smart with me Missy. And she definitely has the attitude–I can almost see her role her eyes when she says “recalculating”.
    Glad your bra turned up. And I know you won’t want to hear this but there will be more and more of these events in your future. At your age, when folks said that I thought they were nuts but now that I’m past 60, I find it’s sadly true.

  84. I thought you were going to say you were still wearing it! My friends and I were in Vegas a couple years ago. Our GPS, Monica, could not say ‘Boulevard’ so we would purposely go the wrong way so she had to say ‘Las Vegas Boulevard’ Martin Luther King Boulevard was unrecognizable.
    Have fun at Squam.

  85. Squam….forest….lake….sky….ahhh! Have fun the whole time! I will join you some time in the future.

  86. I’ll tell you what kind of woman does that; women like us. I did the same thing yesterday, up to the forgetting part. I walked in the house, could not stand the thing one more minute, but didn’t want to A) go upstairs and dump it or B) Have my son walk in and be blinded by the horror, and it, too is a pretty crappy bra.

  87. My phone navigator (Scout) refuses to say “turn left.” It also doesn’t say numbers. So these days, instructions are: “Go point miles and to Chestnut.” It still says “turn right”–conservative little dictator that it is.

  88. I was laughing out loud, and feeling a little superior while thinking, “at least I’ve never done anything like that,” until I realized it COULD happen to me…I hate bras and often take it off as soon as I get home…while sitting in my chair in the living room (you know how you can get it off under your clothing and out the arm of your dress?)…and I’m too lazy to walk the 20 steps to the bedroom laundry basket, but I don’t want to leave it out in the open in the living room in case someone drops by unexpectedly, so I stuff it in my purse where no one can see it until I’m ready to go to bed. Arrrrrrgh. I resolve to stop doing this immediately. (At least you didn’t find it while paying for gas or groceries or something)!

  89. Thank you for making me laugh out loud. I needed to, even though it hurt. I broke a rib last week, so laughing hurts. But I still needed too, so thank you!

  90. Ha ha. I once found my bath products in the fridge and took the TV remote control to work. I also call my GPS Dan. That’s short for Dumb A__s Navigator. Still hoping for Port Ludlow.

  91. We once talked to some locals in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, who had quite a nice sideline in hauling cars from the harbor, said cars having GPS units that told them to take a sharp right a good quarter mile before the bridge they were supposed to turn onto. Lemming after lemming – er, car after car – obediently did so, down a bank and straight into the water. Snerk.

  92. I really can’t be laughing right now, but I am so totally laughing right now. The Mystery of the Gross Bra Thief…who Wasn’t! Ha ha ha ha!

  93. Was it a long drive yesterday before you sat down to knit and sleep? We traveled a lot this summer as my son played baseball on the opposite side of our state. Anyhow, we check in, get to the room, and my husband is complaining about the temperature. So, I reset the thermostat on PTAC unit.
    The next morning, I cannot find my glasses. All the rest of my personal items are in a neat little pile. I walked around the room numerous times, retraced my steps from the night before, and finally fixed a cup of coffee (because I wasn’t going to make it downstairs to breakfast). Then, I remembered that I took my glasses off to adjust the thermostat…and there they sat on the table on the opposite side of the room in plain view (well, if I could have seen that far).
    Our GPS is Jill (the Bitch). My husband summons Jill when we are going unfamiliar places. However, he frequently decides that he can do better than Jill…which leads to her “recalculating” and trying to get us to do U-turns (sometimes for up to 10 miles).
    After a ride with us, Jill joins her virtual friends for virtual cocktails at their favorite virtual bar, and they have a looooong discussion about humans and their inability to follow the simplest driving instructions.

  94. O you make me feel better! I had lost my current book for several days. Just bizarre. Then I went to the cookbook shelf to find something….Ta Da. There was the current novel. Who’d a thunk it?

  95. Thank goodness I’m not the only one. I’ve got a long (though not as humorous) story about thinking my keys were stolen only to find them in the refrigerator under some vegetables. Were they just looking for more fiber?

  96. Our GPS calmly told us to “go off road” up in Luther Marsh once. Never mind that we were in a sedan. I was totally with you in the hotel room break-in theory, but your having a brain break does seem more likely. Good to know we’re none of us alone…

  97. Well, I certainly can relate to the forgetting where I put stuff (in a special place where I just KNOW I’ll remember). But, I would like to recount something that happened to me that wasn’t related to losing something, but to finding it…
    When pregnant with my first daughter (1980), we lived in an apt. that had no full-length mirror. I had not seen my backside for nine months. One day, when in the dressing room at J.C. Penny’s, trying on a new robe for my birthing/hospital stay, I looked in the rear-view mirror and was startled to see that another lady had come into MY dressing room in her very huge pregnancy panties (80’s style that came up to your bosoms). Her backside was huge and I was just shocked until I realized is was ME!!!!
    Sometimes the Universe helps us laugh at ourselves!

  98. Travelling, especially after the GPS treachery is disorienting. I almost went to church with my other bra in my purse. So glad I didn’t end up pulling it out while searching for a pen or mints. How did it end up there? It was either there or the kitchen table and we had company at the time.

  99. Helen SF at September 11, 2013 1:22 PM spoke of losing articles in the house and had to buy another – at first reading felt she bought another house…
    Oh today’s entry and comments have put me in a goofy mood. Thank you!

  100. LOL on the bra! Anyone who hasn’t done something similar is not human. My own keys meltdown of some years ago (reknowned among family & friends) shall not be discussed.
    Our GPS is named Fiona, which is what my husband wanted to name our daughter and I vetoed (he vetoed my 1st choice, too). I figured if it was a name he liked maybe he’d actually listen to it instead of arguing with it. Nope. Didn’t work that way.
    Sorry your drive was longer than necessary. But have fun!

  101. You know you are getting old when…you worry and stress about NOT having a bra on.
    …and I thought I was all alone….
    Sometimes the “geepers” as we call our GPS is right. They know when they are right and that is what annoys me about them the most.
    bjr

  102. Someone did enter my mother’s house and steal her bras and underpants. It wasn’t until she discovered they had taken her shoes as well that she decided to call the police. They were decidedly underwhelmed. Of course, this was before the days of Law and Order SVU.

  103. In our house, my husband is the one who is constantly looking for his keys, wallet, cell phone, and occasionally his glasses. (It’s much harder for him to find the first 3 items when he doesn’t have the last item.) He’ll look around for a while (about 17 seconds), get exasperated, then ask me if I’ve touched, moved, or hidden whatever it is he is looking for. (I’m being kind when I say he asks. It’s really more like an accusation…)
    Next time this happens, I’m telling him your story so he knows he’s not alone. (I’ll probably be pulling his keys out of the freezer or his phone out of the trash while I’m telling him…)
    I, on the other hand, am the one who will go crazy looking for my glasses, only to have him point out they are on my head. We have a great system – he points out the obvious and I find the obscure. =)
    Thanks for sharing, LOVED it!

  104. Did you find my wristwatch with your bra? It’s been missing for a week now. I wore it took it off before bed and haven’t seen it since. I’m blaming the cat.

  105. Loved the post and all the comments! They are right up my alley today. Last week I had to move a desktop computer out of the guest room temporarily. Intended to put it back today and had no trouble finding the desktop (pretty hard to hide), but so far the keyboard and mouse are nowhere to be seen. Maybe I should go look in the freezer.

  106. This made me laugh and laugh, especially the swinging over your head and tossing it. But to find it neatly tucked inside your purse…you must have been sleep walking/folding/tidying. 🙂

  107. Rachel at 4:40, my husband and I call that “the girl trick”!
    Yes I take that thing off as soon as I get home because i’m a 99 lb 34B– why do I even bother with it?!

  108. Oh, dear! I am laughing so hard that tears are rolling down my face! Thank you for giving me the giggles!

  109. This made me laugh so hard! I thought I was going to wake up my kids.
    I can’t say that I’ve ever “lost” my bra in my purse; but I have many times hunted all over the house for the dumb thing in the morning only to finally realize that I never took it off the night before.
    As for the bra thief theory… When I was in High School, our girls PE class took swimming lessons at our local Civic Center. One day when we were all getting dressed again after our lesson, my friend discovered that her panties were missing. She had her bra and the rest of her clothes, but no panties. We turned that place upside down, but never found them. So she had to go back to school, then to work (at Walmart, btw) without wearing any panties. What made it worse was that it was February and she was wearing a skirt.
    So, bra thief? Was definitely a possibility. (my friend did buy herself some new panties when she got to work)

  110. Very funny! Actually thought the story was going to end with ‘And then I noticed I had the bra on.’ Kind of like, if you were to freak out that you couldn’t find your cell phone, and you were driving, and you were to tell the person you were talking to while on said phone you can’t imagine where it is….’ That moment would be priceless. Kind of like that. 🙂

  111. I kind of wish you had called the police about the missing bra. My husband is a retired police officer and tells the greatest stories with the names changed and ones that I’m supposed to deny ever hearing.
    I’m sure the he’s not the only one who does it. And we all would have gotten a good laugh from yours. Not that we haven’t done questionable things ourselves, we just don’t report them to the police or our husbands.

  112. Slightly marginal, but thank you to Sarah at 10.11. I’m Australian…never thought we sounded cute! Made my day…. 🙂

  113. First i thought: she had not showered yet and not discovered she went to sleep with the bra on. Not so. But I definitely know why your bra was in your purse with your knitting. You took it off and thought: Heavens, tomorrow I must not forget to put on my bra. How to prevent that? Laying my glasses on it? No way. What will I do before leaving tomorrow? I will, of course, knit. Ah, I’ll put my bra with my knitting and I will be reminded to put it on. Case solved and closed I watch CSI too, you know.

  114. As I was reading this, I recalled another incident you related about ending up locked out of your room wearing very little and using a washcloth(??) to provide some cover in the elevator down to the lobby for another room key.
    Only you, Stephanie!
    I have had to bite my hand and turn up my radio to keep my co-workers from realizing how hard I’m laughing!

  115. rofl! @”Worst case scenario some guy is cuddling with my crappy bra” . The funiest thing is, we can all relate!

  116. LOL!!! I also love the keys in the freezer. I have done it all. And some of it I do on purpose. I have an irrational fear of irons. So often, in between using, I hide it in an out of the way place. Then every now and then ( a lot) I can’t remember where I put it. Proves I don’t iron that often. My husband is sure I need a shrink for that one.

  117. I am sorry for your stress, but i really needed the big time laughs this week. Thank you for sharing.

  118. and here i was fully expecting you to have accidentally slept in it and you’d find it on your body. 🙂 but who am i kidding? i am an extreme bra-hater and know how nearly impossible it is to do (sober).

  119. Will it make you feel better if you knew that last week I was packed and ready to leave for a trip out of province, and still searching for my bra, which I eventually left behind, thinking I would buy another, which, of course, I never did? and that, for a few minutes, I had to actively suppress the same someone-must-have-taken-it thought? and that actually I finally found the bra today?
    I guess that what I am saying is that it really isn’t just you, but that you are more honest about these things happening, which means that I can post this here, but would NEVER (for instance) tell my sister that same story, although my mom probably told her already, because she was here while I was packing, and I stayed at her place. ARGH.

  120. Can’t say I’ve ever tucked my bra into my purse…
    And I may have to re-name my GPS to SMB instead of Shirley. Took her on a road trip with my aunt and we got scolded when we got off the marked rout (we needed gas and a beverage) – she told us to “Please stick to the highlighted route.”
    Enjoy Squam – I’m jealous. 🙂

  121. Thanks!! This was definitely a grin fest. I’m not laughing at you but with you. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in this situation!!

  122. Several years ago, a US network tried to revive the classic “Twillight Zone” series. The only episode I recall is when a couple wake up in what appears to be brand new construction of their home and neighborhood. One of the startled ‘construction workers’ says they shouldn’t be there, because he and his crew are building the ‘next minute’. He goes on to explain that they are usually very good, but sometimes things go missing ‘a minute ago’ and show up later when the crew finds them. Since then, around our house, we blame the crew for leaving a lost item in the wrong minute.
    Hope you are destressed and better – I join all the LOLS and ROFLs.

  123. Been there. Done that.
    Answer is you thought in case of a fire alarm in middle of night what important things should be in your purse so you could quickly exit room with all your valuables with no loss of time.

  124. I agree with Deborah at September 11, 2013 9:53 AM. Dump your crappy bra and get two new ones! I can’t believe you have only one bra. What do you do when you have to wash it? Go braless? Or do you just not wear a bra on a daily basis?
    Good bras cost more than you think they should. With bras, you get what you pay for, because a good bra makes everything you wear look better!

  125. We call our GPS Karen because her voice sounds like Plankton’s computer wife, Karen, from SpongeBob. And Karen has saved our marriage because my husband cannot remember directions to save his life!

  126. Come back to Indianapolis on your book tour (please?) and visit Barbara’s New Beginnings, a bra shop just rated one of the nation’s top 5. Friends who find that every other shop’s bras all are “Size Too”. — too big/too small/too ugly — swear by it. Yeah, good bras are costly, but worth it. And when the new book outsells even te most recent one, you can afford a beige one AND a black one.
    As for stuff hiding from you, about a year ago, while prepping for a month in Mexico, I decided to hide one credit card at home just in case my wallet got lost or stolen. Last month, i finally gave up on finding it and requested a new one. I figured that would make the old one surface, but no . . .

  127. Our GPS is “Nag-atha”. She kept telling us to get on the NYS Thruway when we’d been on it for an hour.
    I actually have swung my bra “around my head nine times and then let it fly”. One of the greater joys of living alone!

  128. I despise wearing a bra, and often do the through-the-sleeve removal thing. Sometimes I stuff it in the drawer of my computer desk. No one goes in there but me. I had a moment of panic the other day when I needed it and it wasn’t there. I started wondering where on earth I might have stashed it and I was picturing my son inadvertently finding it before I did. He wouldn’t be a happy camper if that happened. All was well, it was actually in my clean laundry pile (how did it get there?) Must be more careful with unmentionables! By the way, on a different topic, I just saw out my computer room window, a really evil looking squirrel coming along the fence with a furry (and I assume dead) thing in its mouth. It went up the tree beside our deck. I assume it put the corpse up there on a branch. I went outside and looked at the bottom of the tree to see if it had spat the corpse out, but I didn’t see anything. That’s the second time this season I have witnessed this behaviour. These squirrels are really starting to creep me out.

  129. My DH and I were traveling from MI to NY through Canada. Our GPS, Genie, kept telling us to stay in the US which is the long way. We finally decided she didn’t want us to go to Canada because she doesn’t have a passport.

  130. I have had a similar experience with my glasses. Which is problematic as I need my glasses to find them.

  131. So … either you know where I left my coffee thermos today or sitting down to knit for a few minutes should help me find it? Though… I haven’t looked in the freezer yet.

  132. I named my GPS “Bossy” – nuff said.
    Hubbs lost his keys, we found them in the oven. Still haven’t figured that out, as he NEVER cooks anything.

  133. I laughed so hard I spit on my keyboard! Although it’s gross, I’m so glad for the smiles and the laughter today. Thank you so muchfor sharing this with us.
    And I’m also so relieved to know that you didn’t have an intruder in your hotel room.
    Personally, I like a real map, or at least one on my iPad… I hate GPSs. Maybe you need to get a good map! 🙂

  134. I am really good at doing things like that. Once I overheated in a hotel room while travelling for work. I got up, took off my pajamas, folded them, put them back in my suitcase, and went to back to sleep. All of this was done while basically asleep. I had no memory of it when I woke up, confused as to why I was almost naked in bed, surprised to find neatly folded pajamas in my suitcase.

  135. I don’t know if I am laughing so hard because you are such a good storyteller or because I absolutely could have done the same thing.

  136. I gave my husband a GPS a few years ago and he promptly named it after his oldest (and most aggravating) sister. And boy, can Linda get into a snit when he goes a different way — which he simply loves to do. I swear, he makes that GPS work harder just for the fun of it (and also because he’ll do just about anything to avoid driving on a recommended route).
    I wonder why everybody names their GPS?

  137. We might be related says the woman who spent twenty minutes wandering around her kitchen looking for the recipe book that she had put on the counter a minute ago and now clearly lost to another dimension. So glad I’m not the only one!!

  138. My sister does a lot of cross country driving, and swears by her GPS. I, however, prefer a map for the big picture. This summer we were traveling thru rural Wisconsin to visit our aunt. The GPS finally gave up on us on County Road J. It would have us go about 300 yards one direction, then tell us to make a U turn. When we turned back, in another 300 yards it would say the same thing! Good thing we had that map.

  139. I rang my husband 3 times today in a row b/c I couldn’t find the garlic. It wasn’t in the fruit bowl where we often keep it. It wasn’t in with the onions in the cupboard. It definitely wasn’t in the fridge fruit/vegie drawers that are actually full of jars and packets of nuts in our fridge (not b/c I am anti fruti and vegies, I just keep them elsewhere). But surely they had to be SOMEWHERE b/c I bought an entire BAG of garlic less than a week ago, so dammit- he better have a good explanation for why he used 6 full heads of garlic in an equal number of days OR a good explanation for why he has obviously hidden the garlic in a ridiculous location AND he better buy some more garlic before he comes home b/c I NEED that garlic right NOW.
    So of course, he doesn’t answer the phone b/c he is driving and I am now adding “NEVER answers phone” to my exhaustive list of grievances. He walks in the door. I immediately ask- WHERE IS THE GARLIC???DID YOU NOT HEAR ME RINGING YOU THREE TIMES WITH MY URGENT GARLIC NEEDS???. He silently walks to the fridge, opens the door, pulls out one of the non-vegie drawers (where the garlic had definitely NOT been only 15 minutes earlier) and retrieves 5 heads of garlic. {sigh}.

  140. Pre-GPS, my coworker printed out the online directions. I’d been to the location before but couldn’t remember exactly how to get there. I kept telling him that this didn’t deem right. We ended up on a dirt fire road that was primarily used as a hiking path. We did get there but with my strange looks from hikers and mountain bikers.

  141. Goood ending. I feel so ‘lost’ during those times and they seem to last forever. I’ve lost license, keys, glasses, books, needles…so far, not a bra. Watch…I’ll lose my bra tomorrow 😐 Have a glorious time at Squam.

  142. We finally broke down and got a GPS after having one with a rental car on a recent trip. Miss Bossy Boots cracks me up when we don’t do as she commands. To see so many others have the same reaction to their GPS as well gives me hope that I’m not totally nuts.
    Last night I had your morning. I had to hunt down a started project and the yarn for it. I remembered getting all the projects I needed into their zip bags for travel on a trip we didn’t make. I remembered putting them all in the same place. I know I’ve been systematically finishing them this weekend since I need them this coming week and not going on the trip wasn’t going to stop me. I looked everywhere including the bathroom, the car, the kitchen and my cases for class. I even gave my husband updates on my bon bon (Lion Brand yarn for my job and not the yummy food product) hunt. He didn’t help since he was sure I was nuts and looking for the food. I finally found it in the very place I put it to begin with then totally forgot. When I showed hubby what it was, his reaction? Oh, it really isn’t food. We all have those moments and now back to knitting/crocheting.

  143. OMG! The same thing happened to me last Thursday morning. I was traveling for work (in the second hotel of three for the week)and COULD NOT FIND MY BRA! My first thought was “How do I explain this to my husband?” I finally found it underneath my suitcase and still am not sure how it got there.

  144. Greetings from Sth Australia. Stephanie, you are freakin hilarious! I just love reading your posts. I am completely on your wave length. All I can say in Aussie here is “Bloody brilliant”!

  145. OK, this is hi-ho-he-larious! I just finished my last exam of a doula course that has involved a LOT of reading and studying about pregnancy loss…and it’s been so hard. I had to compress the second semester due to redeployment of my soldier husband…and I cried a little. Then I thought, “Hey, maybe the Yarn Harlot has something funny on her blog that will make me laugh.” And you did! And it was awesome!
    And now, maybe, I can drag myself into the kitchen and do some dishes. Seriously. I need a fairy godmother.

  146. Hey! This post could not be written any better! Reading through
    this post reminds me of my old room mate!
    He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him.
    Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!

  147. You are funny! I too was at the taproot gathering, experiencing my own brand of bewilderment at having traveled across the country with my husband and child to enter a world that I’ve been reading about for nearly two years. I found plenty of down-to-earth folks who were happy to share a laugh over some absurdity or another. But there is never enough time at such events…reading your post in retrospect makes me all the happier for blogs because they extend and broaden the good times shared by all. thanks for sharing!

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  149. I’ve done worse. I’ve looked for a bra that I was ALREADY WEARING.
    Gorgeous pictures and projects btw. 😉

  150. There have been enough times in my life where I was positive someone had come into our house and taken some random object that almost every time I am looking for something my smart alec husband or child will say, “Someone must have come in and stolen it.” Brats. Just because I find the object later does not mean it wasn’t stolen and returned.

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