Well, I used to know a whole lot of pretty interesting ones.

Some of them so funny you'd laugh yourself unconscious,

Others so terrible you'd never want to repeat them.

But now I can't remember any of those.

So maybe I'll just tell you about the time I found the lost thing.

This all happened many summers ago,

down on the beach

I was as usual, working tirelessly on my bottle top collections,

at least until I saw the thing.

I was sure I wasn't doing much,

it just sat there,

with a really weird look about it.

You know, a sad, lost sort of look.

Nobody else seemed to notice it was there.

They're all too busy doing other stuff I guess.

Hello?

It turned out to be really friendly,

and I played with the thing almost of the afternoon.

It was quite fun.

Yet, the whole time, I couldn't help feeling that something wasn't quite right...

As the hours slouched by,

it seemed less and less likely that anyone was coming to take the thing home.

Soon, there was no denying the unhappy truth;

it was lost.

I asked a few people if they knew anything about it...

I took the lost thing over to Pete's place,

Pete has an opinion on just about everything.

cool.

he said.

Pete didn't know what the thing was exactly;

but he said "well, it always does,

that all physical manifestations, could be identified empirically

though careful observation, calibrated measurement,

and controlled experimentation.

In the end, Pete just shrugged.

he didn't think the lost thing came from anywhere, and didn't belong anywhere either.

" Some things are like that..." He said.

" They are just plain lost."

It was nothing left to do but take this thing home with me.

As for my parents...

Well, I already knew that mom would be concerned about how filthy his feet were.

And dad would worried about all sorts of strange diseases.

They both just wanted me to take it back to where I found it.

" But it's lost."

I said.

Not that made any difference.

I decided to hide the thing in the back shed,

at least until I could figure out what to do next.

I mean I couldn't just leave it wandering around the streets.

The lost thing seemed happy then,

but I'm sure I couldn't keep it in the shed forever.

Mom and Dad will eventually notice when they came out looking for a hammer or something.

It was a real dilemma.

"Are you finding that the order of day to day life is unexpectedly disrupted?"

" Do you suffer from unclaimed property?"

Object without name?

Troublesome artifacts of unknown origin?

Things that just don't belong?

" DON'T PANIC!"

" We've got a pigeon hole to stick it in."

" The Federal Department of Odds and Ends."

The next morning, we caught a tram all the way into the city...

We arrived at a tall gray building with no windows.

It smelled like disinfectant.

" I have a lost thing..."

I called to the receptionist.

" Fill in the forms."

She said.

I was looking around for a desk,

and I suddenly felt something touch my elbow.

And then there was a tiny voice,

" If you really care about that thing,

you shouldn't leave it here.

" This is a place for forgetting, leaving behind.

here, take this."

" Cheers."

I said.

" You shouldn't leave it here..."

It was some kind of sign, I guess,

not very important looking.

but it did seem to point somewhere.

I still think about the lost thing from time to time,

especially when I see something out of the corner of my eye that doesn't quite fit.

You know, something with a wired, sad, lost sort of look.

I see that kind of things less and less these days.

Maybe there aren't many lost things around anymore.

or maybe......

maybe I've just stopped noticing them.

too busy doing other stuff, I guess.