Scene of the Crime

Scene of the Crime

He sat on the floor with bits of paper, discarded food, drier lint, and vacuum dirt surrounding him. An empty garbage bag sat on the rug.

“What are you doing?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d just vacuumed, now all that dust and dirt from the vacuum plus all the nasty wet garbage was back on the floor.

“Looking for that lost napkin,” said George as he picked through every bit of detritus in front of him.

“It’s gone. Vanished. I’ve looked everywhere.”

He glanced up at me, then back at the garbage.

“This is a crime scene,” he said. “I know you threw the napkin in the garbage one night after dinner. Now it’s up to me to find the evidence.”

“Give up, George. We have others. It’s a lost cause.”

George stood, dripping wet mystery goo from his hands on to the floor.

“Nancy, if this was a diamond ring you’d be searching everywhere for it, right? Well, this might not be a ring, but it’s something valuable. Those napkins were a matched set, and now there’s only one.” He sat back down in the garbage. “We need to find it.”

I sighed. Dramatically. For effect. He continued the hunt. I turned and went back to fixing dinner. Set the table with new napkins.

“Aha!”

George’s shriek brought me into the mudroom.

He held a scrap of something in his dirty hand.

“I found it!”

“The napkin? Seems smaller than I remember.”

“No, the password to my email. I’ve been looking everywhere! Hooray!”

He wiped the paper off on his pants, folded it and put it in his pocket.

“Alrighty. Well, then, good job. Any sign of the napkin?”

“You’re right, it’s lost. But I found a jewel, my password!”

Whatever. Passwords are easily changed, just like napkins.

W/C 299.