The case of the missing flip-flop

One of Lola’s quirks is that while she’s cleaning, she’ll put things away in special, hidden places.

Once we couldn’t find our rubber wine stopper. I asked Lola, and she said she’d stuck it in a bowl of corks that we save for sentimental purposes. “It looked like a cork to me,” she said.

Another time, the shower door knob broke off. We kept the part in the bathroom, but after a few weeks, it disappeared. I asked Lola about it.

“Let me think,” she said. “I know it’s around here somewhere….”

She puttered around in the TV room for a few minutes. Then: “Here it is!” She unearthed the knob from a ceramic pitcher.

“I put it there so it wouldn’t get lost,” she said.

When Crayton’s flip-flop vanished a few weeks ago, he assumed Lola had something to do with it. I thought she’d put it in his closet — after all, that’s where shoes go, right honey? — but when we looked, it wasn’t there.

I think Crayton was starting to get a little impatient, because one day he asked me in a very sweet tone if I wouldn’t mind looking for his lost shoe.

This was not an odd request, considering I’m the finder-of-things in our relationship. I always know the contents of the refrigerator, the pantry, the closet. You need an umbrella? We have seven scattered all over the house, and I could tell you exactly where they are. (The home is my domain, people.)

I promised I would look for the flip-flop. But time got away from me, what with traveling and making nicuatole. So Crayton began to make little comments.

“Wow, it’d be really great to have my other flip-flop.” With a wistful look in his eye.

“You know, when we go to Tulum” — we’re going this weekend — “I’ll probably be the only guy there without flip-flops.”

Finally, finally, I had time to look yesterday. The issue had started to eat away at me. Where was this infernal flip-flop? I checked all areas of the closet, no go. I checked the nooks of the entertainment center. Nothing.

I checked under the bed, even though Crayton told me he’d already looked there.

And there, sitting next to our breakfast-in-bed trays, directly below the center of our bed, was his forgotten, lost sandal, marooned on an island of laminate flooring. I couldn’t reach it, so I grabbed one of the trays and pushed, and the flip-flop emerged out the other side.

As soon as I had it, I sent Crayton an email. Subject line: “Flip-flop found.” Text: “Boo-yah.”

“Where was it?” he asked me later.

I told him, and he looked just the teensiest bit embarrassed.

“I looked there!” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t find things.”