It Didn't Grow Legs

Here’s a fun story about our house. Like in most houses, nothing can ever be found in it. Especially if it’s important.  Or urgent.  It’s uncanny how, without fail, Melvin and the boys have always called me when something goes missing.

With Melvin, it has its own rhythm. He’ll start with, “Where have you hidden it?” even when the missing thing has absolutely nothing to do with me. It might be in his own drawer, or right under something he placed himself, but that sentence has never really meant you hid it. It has always meant, I’m stuck. I need help.

And before anything is found, he gets increasingly irritated — cussing, sighing, opening and shutting drawers loudly, acting as if the thing has definitely ‘grown legs and walked away’. The frustration rises in small waves. He gets short, snappy, almost as if the object has personally betrayed him.

But the minute I walk in, pick something up, move one piece of paper, or open one drawer properly and actually find the thing, he transforms. Immediately. With absolute confidence he’ll say, “See? I told you it was going to be right there.”

He’s such the Drama Queen!  That line has become its own comedy routine in our house.

When the boys were younger, the pattern repeated itself, especially with Sam. He would be looking for something important — let’s just call it X — and he would insist he had checked everywhere. Not casually checked. Properly checked.

I would ask, “What all have you looked at?”
“My desk.”

“Did you check the cupboard?”
“Yes.”

“The bag?”
“I checked everything.”

“ Well, it didn’t grow legs and walk away”.

 And I would get up to go check for myself.  I’d open the cupboard. I’d look at the desk. I’d pick up the bag, empty it completely, and there it would be, lying calmly among things he had “already checked.”

That’s when I’d say, every single time, “See?!! It didn’t grow legs and walk away.” Without fail, I was thanked with a dirty look!

And that line stuck. It became part of our family vocabulary.

Years passed. The boys grew up. And slowly, the roles switched.

Now they are 28 and 31. And sometimes I’m the one wandering around the house saying, “I can’t remember where I put it.”

Without missing a beat, one of them will smile and say,
“Well… it didn’t grow legs and walk away. Someone once told me that.”

And every time it happens, it makes me smile. Maybe more than I ever smiled back when I was the one saying it.