Journal from the Edge of Survival: Where are the Damned Scissors?

We’re going to take a break from infection and worry and the zombie apocalypse for a day to talk about something that has been a critical challenge to my marriage for decades: scissors.

Scissors have been disappearing from our household forever. When our daughter was young, we could usually try to force the door open into her junkheap of a bedroom, pushing past the piles of clothing, discarded food wrappers, empty CD jewel cases, and open makeup containers to find scissors scattered among the ruins. When she finally moved out of the house (leaving a lot of her junk behind) we found NINE pairs of scissors in her drawers, in the back of her closet, and under her bed. I don’t want to think about why she needed nine pairs of scissors, or what she was cutting in there. It doesn’t matter. She’s almost 30 now. We survived that. It’s over. Therapy has healed us all.

But after she was gone, and we moved to our new home, a secret was revealed: she was not the only scissors-stealer in the house.

Let me explain my scissors situation:

I have scissors for everything, and I always know where they are. My very expensive, high-end craft scissors are in the craft room, and woe unto him that taketh the craft scissors to cut anything that is not a natural textile. They are precious. I have wielded them ferociously at anyone who has asked to borrow them…

not that asking happens often, but if I catch someone in the act of what they think of as “non-verbal borrowing” and what I think of as “downright theft,” the culprit might find those scissors staring him pointedly in the carotid artery

…to the point where I think I have trained everyone (and of course by everyone I mean “Charlie”) to not even THINK about using those.

I have many pairs of yarn/embroidery scissors, because they make super cute ones and I like ‘em and I crochet and shit…

if you say “and shit’ after anything, it makes it sound way cooler.

I also have some antique sewing scissors, but I keep those tucked away and only bring them out to admire them in private…

 when nobody who might someday steal them to cut some rubber tubing on some car part is around to find out about their existence 

…like a teenager with a stash of Playboy magazines.

Wait…does playboy still exist? I suppose they’re more likely these days to be huddled alone in their darkened bedroom, hunched over a tiny phone screen watching something dank and dirty on Pornhub or whatnot. Color me old and out of touch.

And…I have TWO pairs of kitchen scissors. I always need a backup because those are the most public scissors in the household, and the easiest to access (by those with nefarious intent), and the most likely to walk away.

After we moved, and scissors once again started mysteriously disappearing, I asked Charlie where they were. He got immediately miffed. “I didn’t TOUCH any scissors!”

The “miffed” part, of course, was the dead give-away. Miffed smells like guilt. It’s true. Next time someone is miffed at you, stick your nose on them and take a good whiff. There it is. Guilt. That unmistakable scent that hangs around non-verbal borrowers and other evildoers at all times.

“Perhaps Jessica drove over here in the middle of the night and took them?” I asked, with enough sarcasm that even Charlie couldn’t miss it. “Should we head over to her house and check under her bed?”

“Probably!” was all he said before he stormed righteously out of the room.

Sigh.

I should explain that dear, sweet Charlie is a bit of a Neanderthal when it comes to objects he needs. I describe his approach to those needs as “Charlie see – Charlie want – Charlie take.”

Now, if I discover an item missing within, say, six hours of its disappearance, I can ask him about it. He will likely vaguely remember having had a use for it, but as is his wont, he was probably distracted mid-use and the item disappeared from his hand and landed somewhere truly bizarre, like the refrigerator, or the back of a toilet, or maybe on top of an unused filing cabinet in the garage. Once an object is gone from his hands… well…that object ceases to exist. And in that case, rather than admit to having lost said item, he will say “I’m sure I put it back.”

We know this is impossible. We know this because Charlie always has the ability to find something when he wants it, like a spoon or a battery or… you know… scissors, but is completely unable to figure out where those items go when they need to be put away. Dishwasher emptying means stacking the dishes on the counter for me to put away later. This is fine with me. I don’t mind doing that… I just have a difficult time with the bending required to retrieve them from the machine… but I do find it hilarious that his favorite bowl, the one only he uses, the one he has no trouble finding in the cupboard, presents such a mystery to him when it is time to be returned. He truly has no idea where it goes. The connection between “where I found it” and “where it goes” does not exist for him. Frankly, I find it a wonder we were ever able to consummate our marriage.

Usually, though, in that case I can kind of retrace his steps and find the missing object.

Aha! There it is. Sitting on top of his hat rack in the foyer. Of course. Where else would it be?

However, if more time has passed, Charlie’s interesting lack of a sense of long-term “object permanence” kicks in.

“I never took that. YOU must have lost it.”

This is where my internal eye-rolling starts. Sure, hon. Sure I did.

And if even more time passes… he will probably argue that we never owned one of those things, or maybe even insist that such an object does not exist in this reality, and I’m just making crazy talk.

Sigh.

So right now we’re down to one pair of kitchen scissors. Which means I am monitoring them VERY closely. They are either in my hand being used, or they’re in the sink awaiting washing if they were used for food-like purposes or to cut something icky, or they’re hanging on the hook on the drying rack, or they are in the damned drawer where they belong.

Yesterday, they were in none of those places. I sighed…

I sigh a lot in this household, it expels the bad energy and allows me to continue to be the saint that I am. I am SO a saint. Shut up

… knowing what was coming next.

Except, it didn’t. When I said I couldn’t find the scissors, Charlie got up to help me find them. I’m not kidding.

“Sometimes a second pair of eyes is better,” he said, with kind encouragement in his voice. I gasped. I took a deep sniff. Not even a soupçon of guilt. No defensiveness. Something very strange was happening.

We searched the drawers, behind appliances, etc., and around the pile of packaged food (something we never usually have) heaped on the side counter in a jumble of unhealthiness.

No scissors.

“Is it possible you took them to use for something and left them there?” I waited for the explosion.

“Absolutely, 100% not!” he insisted. But… calmly. Assuredly. Not angrily at all. Weirdness abounding.

Then he paused, his hands frozen between a box of pasta and a bag of potato chips.

“Wait,” he said.

He slowly straightened up. I could see the cogs grinding behind his eyes, tiny puffs of smoke escaping from his ears as long-neglected machinery was clicking into motion.

Then he walked, automaton-like, to his workstation at the dining table. He reached into the piles of papers and retrieved my scissors.

“Here you go,” he said, and handed them to me.

I was stunned. This had never happened. Not once in the centuries of our marriage.

I was afraid to spoil the mood, so I just smiled and thanked him. I hope the smile was warm enough to act as Skinner-ish positive reinforcement for the future.

I’m wondering if maybe he DOES have a mild case of the zombie apocalypse virus and it has affected his brain and his memory. If so, I hope it’s a permanent alteration. I think scientists should study this bizarre side-effect and see if there’s a way to use it to cure absentmindedness across the world. I think many spouses would be grateful.

And so, kitchen scissors tucked neatly away into their drawer-of-mystery, we survive.

PS – Charlie, if you’re reading this… stop now….

 

I need to confess that I have a secret stash of kitchen scissors, several pairs actually, still in their individual packaging, hidden in the house. And by “hidden” I mean “in plain sight where Charlie will never notice them.” So at least I know that this apocalypse will never find us unable to open that wretched vacuum-sealed package of hamburger. We are safe. Phew.