the case of the missing cds

a long long long time ago, we went to the temple and tannis babysat our kids with dough's kids. we let her use our van to get around in and brent was rightly concerned for the safety of our stuff in the van. so he "cleaned" it out. brent's favourite way of "cleaning" is to stick anything that is not in its place into the laundry room. this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. he puts more stuff in there then i can keep up with and consequently our laundry room is filled--almost to capacity. i can hardly get into the dryer and often when i do so i feel like swearing. i don't though and settle for calling brent a few names under my breath (or even a little louder if natalie isn't around). anyways, one of the things he took out of the van was our cd case that was full of our best cds. this was going overboard i felt because it was kept in a drawer under the front passenger seat. it was perfectly safe there. well after we got back we couldn't find it. i searched the laundry room and the outside storage (another of brent's favourite dumping grounds) it was nowhere to be found. i left it for awhile until i cleaned those places out. a year past and still...all our good cd cases remained empty. i cleaned the outside storage. no cds. (brent has already started to fill that space again) i started the mountainous task of cleaning out the laundry room several times. no sign of the discs. then a couple of weeks ago i was asked to sing something with my sisters at the ward christmas party. i thought it would be fun to do an arrangement similar to one that the rankin sisters did and i had their christmas cd. i got it out, opened it up and you guessed it: empty! arrgh! i once again cursed brent in my mind (he was there so i didn't want to be too vocal) and went back to the laundry room with new vigour. i searched every where i could think of: the shelves, the pile of stuff on the dryer, the pile of stuff on the cedar chest, the stuff wedged between the chest and the washing machine, and the floor. but no. frustrated and disgusted i left the room and sat down in front of the computer and tried to download it. i couldn't find anything. later that night i went back in and checked all those places again more thoroughly. i climbed up on to the washing machine and looked on the high up shelves. i looked behind the washer and dryer. it must not be here i thought. maybe brent put it in something that go thrown out--or it is one of the boxes of mission keepsakes or something. i was losing hope. in my prayers that night i asked for help in finding the discs. then yesterday morning brent said he thought he put in my hope chest, so i stopped my church preparations and ran down to check. no. he didn't. but then i started thinking maybe he put it in the cedar chest in the laundry room. so last night when we were done our visiting and all was quiet in the house i went into the laundry room with renewed determination. i took most of the stuff off the cedar chest and lifted the top. there was the sewing machine. i have used it since the cds went missing. i felt all around it. no luck. i emptied the craft box. i climbed up on the washing machine again. no cds. the growing doubt that those cds were in our house anywhere plagued me all the while. i left the laundry room and checked the coat closet ignoring the fact that it isn't full of stuff and i know exactly what is in there. maybe i saw it in there and didn't pay any attention to it because i was getting my toque or something, i thought. nope. it has to be here somewhere. (karen would have put an s on the end of somewhere. she also would have been using the word "buddy" in here too.) i decide to look under the cedar chest even though it was too narrow opening for the case to fit in. i found a few papers and a children's card game. i didn't like sticking my hand under there because i could see a spider web--what if i touched a big black spider? i put my head right down on the ground and shone the flashlight under...and then, i saw something! forgetting all about spiders, i stuck my hand right in and pulled out the cd case. it was full--every leaf had a cd. now watch the disc won't even be in here i thought to myself as i rapidly flipped through the case. i saw beloved cd after beloved and much missed cd. at the very back was the currently much sought after cd. i ran victoriously upstairs and woke up brent with the news. afterall why should he sleep? he was the one who lost it in the first place. now after listening to the disc i don't know if it will be much help.