Either my ghost or my imagination is playing tricks on me and I’m not sure which. 

Tonight I dropped my laptop off for an overnight stay with my friends at the Geek Squad.  After I described the problem and miraculously said problem actually happened, my computer was admitted for consultation and repair. 

I’m not sure what was more frightening, the ‘blue screen of death,’ the black screen on start up or discovering things missing from my wallet while leaving the store.

“You dropped a penny, oh and a dime, oh, and there’s another penny over there,” the woman behind me called out.

I turned around, and sure enough coins were bouncing from my wallet onto the tile.  I picked up the loose change and put it into my wallet while I exited the store. 

The first thing I noticed was that the zipper was open all the way; I never open it all the way, never.  In addition to being a home for coins, the change compartment is where I keep a few very important items: a symbol of safety and love secured in a red silk pouch, an important business card, the phone number for the handy man, and the date and time of my next hair appointment.

The pocket was empty except for a few nickels, dimes, and my silver horse and gold lion charms.  Baffled, I sat down on the curb outside of the store and rifled through my purse.  I held out hope that I would find the missing items. No luck. In a matter of minutes I had everyone in line for the Geek Squad looking frantically for my lost items.  No luck.

On the drive home, I rubbed my forehead in frustration and couldn’t help myself from thinking, “The ghost has gone too far this time. My rings and the rolos were one thing, but messing with the items in my wallet is personal.”

The token held inside the soft folds of the pouch is only removed during emotional emergencies, specifically when I need a physical reminder that everything is going to be ‘ok.’  The business card is essential to completing one final step toward independence and the importance of the handy man’s phone number and the date and time for my next hair appointment goes without saying.

Messing with these particular items was far different from the past escapades, most of which have made me laugh and shake my head in disbelief.

I’m not sure which incident is my favorite, it’s a toss up between the disappearing rolos and the reappearing rings. Although it’s hard to rule out the morning I discovered the decorative ornament for my hub cap in the pocket of my purse.

Apparently my ghost has a sweet tooth in addition to a love for practical jokes.  A bowl of chocolate candy is nearly a staple on my kitchen counter.  I usually stock it with some combination of Kit Kats, Twix, Snickers, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. For some reason last winter I decided to shake things up and add caramel filled Rolos to the mix. The morning after the Academy Awards the bowl that had been overflowing with Rolos and Kit Kats was empty with the exception of six mini candy bars crisscrossed in a neat stack at the bottom of the bowl. 

Recent shenanigans, among them the Volvo hub cap emblem appearing in my purse and swim goggles in the bottom of a laundry basket, led to immediate playful mutual accusations and adamant denials about clearing out the rolos.

Over the next several weeks, the missing Rolos appeared one and sometimes two at a time, in the fold of a blanket, in the pocket of the billiard table, in the back yard, and most shockingly in a drawer in my office at work.

I will admit that we trapped a mouse during this timeframe, however; mice leave ‘presents’ behind – I never found any.  To prove or disprove the theory of a mouse, we purposely left food out in the basement. It was never eaten and most of the rolos we found were wrapped or partially unwrapped with no hint of nibble marks.

I also have a particular ring that has been disappearing and reappearing for fifteen years.  The most recent occurrence was this summer.  After a week of searching the cabin high and low for my rings, I convinced myself that I must have left them at home.

Two weeks later, my mom and I had the following email exchange.

Subject:  rings

Mom: Kay found your rings in the little cabin!

Me: YAY!!!

Mom: This is going to freak you out.  Kay said your rings were just laying in full view on the table beside the bed in the bedroom.

Yep, I was freaked out.

These were the recollections that flew through my mind as I tried to figure out how it was possible that the items from my wallet were missing. 

I will confess to being less than rational during my search and rescue mission.  They weren’t on or under the table or buffet, no trace of them in the kitchen, and not in my bedroom either.

It seemed like the dining room deserved one more pass.  It’s the room where my purse most often resides.  In a last ditch effort, I picked up my iPad case from under the stack of Bon Appetite magazines on the buffet.  I pulled back the top and there they were, inside the case, all of the missing objects.  

My imagination?  I think not.