Anyone have a trick for finding something you've recently misplaced?

Just now my wife misplaced the car keys. She came in to the house with a bag of stuff and -- ostensibly -- the keys. She did a few things, and now she can't find the keys. Neither can I. She can't remember exactly what order she did things between coming into the house and wanting to leave again, so backtracking has limited usefulness, and we've looked everywhere obvious.

What I'm looking for is any short-term memory recall tricks or techniques anyone here has that can bring such things back in mind. I've noticed that when I've misplaced a thing, it's often because I thought (wrongly) that I was putting the object someplace unusual where it would be easy to remember, but then I forget the thought and of course I've put it somewhere unusual where it's hard to find later! Dunno if this is what happened to her this time. I suggested she relax for a bit and see if it comes to her, but she's too wound up and angry for that right now.

I'm open to suggestions and/or musings upon the vicissitudes of human consciousness.

If you chase it, it will flee.

Ignore it and it will demand your attention. :)

I'm thinking we need to mellow out and let the keys come back on their own.

my husband was frantic looking for his keys. If he wasn't at work on time, toast.

After an hour, we realized that we let the kid play with them.

That said kid sat in a highchair located next to the trash can.

That the aforesaid trash can had been emptied in anticipation of trash pick up day.

Yes, young people are as dumb as bricks. And, they reproduce.

:)

and you'll surely find it the next day...

RL

Unfortunately, with car keys it's not so simple. This is our only set of keys for this car, too. My wife lost the other set on vacation a few years ago. D'oh!

This is just what I call the technique, there may actually be a formal name for the technique, but I didn't learn it from anywhere it just works for me.

This would only tend to work if 1) you are the last person to have the item in question and 2) you can visualize the last time you had the item. (with these qualifiers you may want to have your wife perform).

What I do is stand in the last place I had or can remember seeing the item and stand comfortably, feet together, hand palm-to-palm over your heart. Close your eyes and breathe evenly through your nose visualizing the last place you saw the item and clearing your mind of all other thought. Once you can see only the item in you mind, open your eyes and glance slowly around the room you are in. If done right it should take no more than about 90 seconds to either lay your eyes on the item of have its location recalled to prescient memory.

It helps me sometimes to make an audible noise as I open my eyes (literally like a "ping") and look around.

I am serious about this helping me find things, let me know if it works for you.

I'll get her started on it at the next opportunity.

Be sure to say at least once, "Well, it'll be in the last place we look."

As if you'd find it and then keep looking. :eyes:

Turn your back and say, "Well, that's out of the way. At least we saved a trip to the vet."

lol

"The Secret Life of Keys."

:scared:

:)

"Terry, you find yer wallet?"

"Yeah, but I'm still lookin fer it! You know, just in case we're livin' in a parallel universe or sumpin'!"

visit the last place you were when you lost the item, then the next place, next, and so on... until you find it.

I like that one, but she's not super-rational right now.

no fake, it works. :) i can run around like a chicken without a head, looking for something, tear the house up from one end to the other...nada..."ok, cat, where are my keys?" BAM! there they are in a completely bizarre place (like the bathroom). :crazy:

dg

what are you trying to do? get me in trouble?

dg

:)

Trust me on this. ;)

I'm going to check the car now. Supposedly, it's impossible to lock the keys in the car, and the car is locked, but this is a strange day.

your lives.

It's like the law of the fleamarket. You never find what you came for but you always find something you need.

Assert your independence from lost keys. Thumb your noses at 'em.

They'll soon come begging to be taken back.

Came back from doing something completely different and checked a "pocket-shelf" thingy (like a small shelf, but on a steep slant, good for keeping sunglasses and such) right next to where we usually keep the keys. Bingo. Found them within a minute of getting back.

Just so they wouldn't be in the last place we looked, I checked around some more. In case they had offspring, ya know.

to have a couple of extra sets made!

They have the little magnetic strip on 'em that the ignition reads.

Costs something like $100 to order them from Germany.

Effen keys.

Nice trick, if you can do it

when other people in the house lose their things. I look in the less obvious places--places they probably went, but would not imagine they left stuff--like up high. I've found a lot of crap on the reefer. Then there is the obvious--right where they are most likely to have left something, but then it fell of the something. Found a lot of stuff that way.