About the Black Holes Inside the House

Everybody loses a few of their belongings every once in a while. While almost every sort of item that can be moved will get lost at some point, there are some that disappear particularly often - socks, hair elastics, pens, cellphones, keys. Why that? Well, one might say this is due to the fact that these are handled pretty often and that this might lead to forgetting to place them back to where they were taken from or that they are small enough to disappear among other stuff. But that would be too easy. 

The truth: there's a magic black hole in every house. And it seems to be located right below the washing machine. 

You might be shocked at this realization, but don't worry, there must be a fix for it somewhere, right? Right. So here are my tips for minimizing the amount of items that get lost in daily life. 

Take some sort of clip to join the two matching socks right when you get them off your feet. In a bigger household, you might also want to consider a seperate container for collecting the used socks and washing socks only among other socks to prevent them from getting lost inside a shirt or pillowcase. 

Buy the same socks multiple times. Well, this isn't as much about preventing them from getting lost but rather a quick fix in case one sock got lost somewhere or a sock had a hole or something like that. This way, you can match a different pair of socks from two socks that lost their mate. 

Have a distinctive place for every sort of item. Like hair elastics. Keep them at one spot and force yourself to put them right back as soon as you take them out of your hair. This is easiest if you have that collecting spot at a place where you usually take them on and off, for example in front of the bathroom mirror or on the bedside table. You can set up multiple spots for the same sort of item too and distribute the items evenly every once in a while when you run out of them in one spot. 

Don't ever put your phone to silent mode when it is not required. That way, you can simply call your own phone and listen to where it rings if you can't find it. There are some apps doing the same job, too, telling you where your phone is at the moment from another device. Certain keychains will light up or make a sound when you whistle, so if you keep losing your keys, this might be a good investment for you. 

And lastly and most mighty: ask mom. An item is only lost if mom can't find it.