FROM THE

The case of the missing clothes

There is a mystery at the Nigbor household, one that keeps presenting itself, much to my annoyance. It comes in diuerent forms, depending on the week. The case of the missing underwear. The case of the missing socks. The case of the missing sweatshirts. The case of the missing sanity. (That one occurs each week when the others appear).

At least once a week, one of my stepsons has a clothing conundrum in the morning when they’re getting ready for school. It always happens, of course, when they are running late or at the last possible minute.

“Sarah, I don’t have any socks. There are none in my drawer.” This is after we purchased a 12-pack in the last two weeks.

“Sarah, all of my sweatshirts are gone. I can't find any anywhere." At last count, Daw son had at least eight hanging in his closet.

“Sarah, I have no underwear. Can you buy more?” This one is the most befuddling to me. Where does the underwear go? Do they have a secret stash somewhere and someday I’m going to open a closet door and 300 pairs of underwear are going to topple down onto me from a high-reaching shelf?

This all usually happens after I have done their laundry, and let me tell you, they have A LOT of laundry.

Sometimes solving the mystery is as easy as opening their dresser drawer and pointing out the neat rows of folded socks. It’s beyond me how they are that blind that they miss them, but maybe their father should make them an eye appointment.

Others times the mystery can be solved by opening a backpack and finding four mil dewy, stinky sweatshirts shoved in the bottom. This also solves the mystery of why they can't fit anything in their backpacks. Another common place to find discarded and forgot ten clothes is their school locker. I kid you not, my oldest one time brought home seven pairs of pants (after we had bought him a few new pairs because he swore up and down that the pants must've walked ou on their own.) These pants probably could've walked ou on their own, they were so crusted with boy ick from being in the bottom of a locker. But he had a whole rediscovered wardrobe!

I've also solved the mystery by finding mounds of stinky boy socks shoved under the couches in the family room. When they’re watching TV, the socks inevitably come ou and of course it would be too much work to put them in a hamper. Shoving them under a couch seems to suvce, until the wailing begins that they have no socks to wear. This also happens frequently in the car. Do they not notice that they have no socks on (in the winter especially) when they put their shoes back on to get out of said car? I wish common sense was a class that could be taught in school.

My middle stepson used to be a sleepwalker. There were many times when he would get up in the night and discard clothing around the house in odd places. One night I watched as he calmly walked out of his room, looked at me, opened the hall closet and shoved a pillowcase on the shelf, and shut the door. I looked in the pillow case and it contained one pair of underwear. It was clean, but apparently in his sleepy stupor, he thought that is where it needed to go. Again, this is why I'm convinced I might find a se cret stash someday.

Just last week, the youngest was screeching with contempt at his brother, accusing him of stealing all of his underwear. He had no underwear in his drawer, so obviously someone stole it. As he demanded I immediately go into town to buy him new underwear, I reminded him to open the dryer. There all fluuy and clean, he found a dozen pairs of underwear along with his baseball uniform, favorite sweatshirts and socks. Another mystery solved.

Now if I could only find my sanity…

BY SARAH NIGBOR