The Pencil That's Always Missing

I never seem to have a pencil when I need one.

That's not entirely true. I have plenty of pencils. I've got carpenter pencils in red, yellow, and orange. The big flat ones that are supposedly harder to lose. At one point I put several of them in a cup on the workbench so I'd always know where to find one.

For a while, that seemed to work. Then they started disappearing.

Not all at once, but one at a time. I'd reach into the cup and notice one was gone. A few weeks later another one disappeared. Before long I'd be standing in the shop getting ready to start a project and somehow there wasn't a pencil anywhere around.

Now the easy answer is that it's me. I pick one up, set it down somewhere, get distracted, and forget about it. That explanation makes perfect sense, which is probably why everybody would tell me that's exactly what's happening.

The problem is I'm not completely convinced. Those pencils seem to have a mind of their own.

Every now and then one turns up in a place that makes absolutely no sense. I've found them in the kitchen. I've found them in the bedroom. I've found them under piles of boards and inside toolboxes I was sure I hadn't opened in months. For all I know, there are carpenter pencils scattered all over this place right now.

The funny thing is they're bright colors. Red, yellow, orange. They aren't exactly trying to blend into the background. If I dropped one in the middle of the yard, you'd think it would be easy to spot. Somehow that never seems to matter.

The whole thing reminds me of socks in the dryer. Everybody knows they don't actually disappear, but somehow there's always one missing. The pencils seem to operate under the same set of rules.

Eventually I find a pencil and the project gets started. Whether it's the same one that disappeared a month ago or a completely different one, I couldn't tell you. Usually it's right after I've already gone looking for another one. Once I have a pencil in my hand, the mystery stops mattering and I get back to work.

Maybe the missing pencil is with the missing sock. Maybe they knew each other and ran off together. At this point, I can't completely rule it out.

I just know that somewhere between finishing one project and starting the next, another carpenter pencil always seems to vanish.

And another sock.