John Hartford wrote a song called "The Collector" about an invisible little guy who comes into your house while you're sleeping and takes things. Like the caps to your pens, and one sock (you always thought it was the dryer, but no, it's this guy), and your toenail clippers, and odd things like that. That stack of Post-It notes that you know you bought last week and put in the anything drawer? Yep, he's got them. Or that wrapping paper you just picked up? No wait, there's the paper, not where you left it but there it is. But where the hell's the card? Or the tape?
I don't know who he is, but there's one for every house. I've lived in lots of houses in several different states in this country, and he's been in all of them. And the reason I think each collector stays with his house is because the things I can't find vary from house to house. In one I couldn't find nails if I was walking barefoot at night. In another, the nails were always in the front right corner of the drawer (which is where they were supposed to be in the other house, but no), but the tape, which lived right next to the nails? MIA. And when I did find it - under the bookshelf in the front room - it had cat fur or dog hair on every last millimeter. Even the stuff that had stayed rolled up, which was either the Collector playing games or I've got seriously mutant cats and dogs. In this house, I can find the tape and, sometimes, the nails, but Lillian can't find the fuses. Granted, we've still got things in boxes, but not the fuses! Dammit, they were right there just yesterday! Well, okay, maybe the day before, or was it last week? But they were right there! And she scowls at me in frustration and goes back to her woodshop. I'm not upset. I know the Collector, and so does she. I also know that in our next house we'll find the fuses, but something else will go missing. Batteries, or the remote. And in a weird way, that's okay. It's a predictable bit of chaos in the universe, and I like that.
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