A Bedroom Black Hole Mystery

Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of story…

Every one of us has had it happen, the missing sock that the dryer ate. Eventually, sometimes, it turns up behind the machine, or static-stuck inside a polo shirt or with the dryer sheet inside a pair of pants. It happens.

What I am about to tell you is NOT that kind of story. This story is much worse and impossible given our current understanding of the universe and particle physics.

I have tried to contact Drs. Neil deGrasse  Tyson and Michio Kaku to get them to investigate the possibility of a micro-singularity, a mini black hole, in my bedroom, but all I received from them both was a certified letter from each of their respective law firms directing me to make NO further attempts to contact them under threat of a restraining order.

So I turn to you, gentle reader.  

The first suspicious event (the second actually. I am under legal advice not to mention the first item yet) is the missing jar of Vicks. On my nightstand one moment (where it had lived for years) and then gone. Simply gone. I searched in the bed, under the bed, behind the bed. I looked in front, behind, next to, and in the nightstand. I went through the trash. Nothing. I looked under, behind, and in the chair. Nothing. I looked inside the pillowcases. To this day that thing is simply gone.

I am a reasonable fellow. After a thoughtful search of all of the above and even some other impossible considerations (it rolled some ridiculous distance) I replaced it and stopped thinking about the problem.

Then it happened.

The back story is a simple one. One that, I am sure, we all employ.

The life of a set of sheets. 

You buy the two-sheet set (one fitted, one flat, two pillowcases). You open and wash the new sheets. You dry and fold (wad-up the fitted sheet). Then you put the sheets in the closet with the other sets for rotation on the bed. 

They come off of the bed and go into the washer, into the dryer, folded/wadded, and returned to the closet awaiting their next turn in the rotation.

I have, (I had) three sets of sheets. One blue, one grey, one gold. 

This process went on unchanged for years. Even after the Vicks disappearance.

The day came when it was the gold sets’ turn in the rotation. Two pillowcases. One flat sheet. No fitted sheet.

That is odd…

 I looked in the closet. I looked in the dryer. I looked in the hamper. I looked in, under, and behind both the washer and the dryer. 

Remembering the Vicks mystery, I re-looked everywhere. I took everything out of the closet. Everything! (Upside, I discovered a package of light bulbs, a brand new bottle of Fabreze, and a box of .45 cal. ammo.) No gold fitted sheet.

I even looked on the mattress, under the clean blue fitted sheet I was now forced to substitute, thinking I just left it on the bed. Nope.

After a few days, my monkey brain made me do the entire search over, this time employing a police detective-type grid search.

I have successfully used this type of search pattern in the past (when my then-wife lost her diamond ring somewhere in the cabin, at a bed and breakfast place in Key West). The other guests and maid services were not happy with the piles of luggage, furniture, clothes, and linens neatly stacked and inventoried on the front porch, but after several hours, an energetic conversation with the manager, and lots of pictures by other guests, I did find the ring. Odd, even though I bought three dozen Cafe Beignet style doughnuts for the staff after I found the ring when I tried to re-book that place for the next winter vacation, they were completely booked, no matter what days I tried…

Anyway, the point is that I know how to conduct a grid search. No luck.

I do not have any “grands” that visit, so no sheet-tent-fort has ever been made. I have no animals, cats, dogs, or goats, that might account for the disappearance.

My truck washing rags are stored separately in the garage, (yes I checked). Their count, fold, and stack by color piles are correct.

My everyday carry bag was searched. My “get-home bags”  that live in the truck are in the clear. (Subsequently, I spent two days updating and re-packing them both.) I had fleeting hopes of finding the Vicks there but alas, no joy.

Recently, I was reduced to asking everyone who has been here since the disappearance if,

…. pausing there for a moment.

 If there is a way to ask someone if they accidentally, or as a prank, or for whatever reason, decided that it might be fun to take a gold fitted sheet from my closet, I have not discovered a way to ask that question without some odd looks and replies. (The best of which came from a certain close {at the time} female friend who, after a well-timed and well-delivered dramatic “harumph” suggested that I get a warrant and interrogate the maintenance staff. Seriously, the “harumph” was classic, even though she does not comprehend the legal path to securing a warrant and searching a maintenance building (yes, I considered doing that). Strangely, she is still not returning my texts. Maybe she took a job at that Key West “B&B”.

I am about to abandon all hope in this case. 

Every time I get on Amazon now to order anything, I sadly scroll through the sheet section. I have not been able to click “buy now” yet. Full disclosure, the gold sheet set has been discontinued. I am bereft. I am forlorn. I am broken, beaten by a sub-atomic force of nature beyond my addled mental ability to comprehend.

You, dear reader, are my last hope, (unless Dr. deGrasse Tyson or Dr. Michio Kaku somehow reads this story and changes their mind).

At this point, I will entertain any theories you might posit on the search or any idea of what color replacement sheets to order and what to do with the remnants of the gold set.

In full transparency and complete honesty, this latest event brings the list to THREE items that have vanished. The Vicks, the gold fitted sheet, and one other item that the statute of limitations has not yet expired on ( my attorney advises that I do not disclose this item until 2029). 

Help me!

Please.

Note:

A special thank you to Ms. Cathy Lynn Loughery for pin-picking my brain about turning this mystery into a story. Thank you… I think.