It started when I had the idea this morning. From out of nowhere, I decided to look for my seven year old Zoom 506 bass effects box... not that I wanted to use it, of course, because that would mean that I already had an amplifier for that purpose (I didn't). I just thought of it for some unexplainable reason and decided then and there to look for it. This little endeavor proved difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I haven't used it at all since the president was wearing a pompadour (and a mustache, don't forget). Secondly, it was located somewhere inside my room.

My room is something of a sentient entity, obeying its own laws and occasionally disobeying universal ones. One of the existing laws is that whatever gets brought in has a close to nil possibility of ever making it out to the world outside. Being something of a packrat, the nine years or so that I've occupied the room directly translates to nine years of accumulated stuff - magazines, books, comics, toys, blisters, clothes, cds, dvds, tapes, unidentifiable electronic components, accessories, souvenirs, boxes, empty bottles, and other miscellany. This brings us to another existing law, or rather, an anti-law. My room has its own law of gravity. The varied stacks are all held up by forces unknown, possibly exerted by dust bunnies hiding in the many dark regions of my little asylum. Though they may appear to have been piled randomly, these stacks actually follow a complicated filing system comprehensible only to my frontal lobe (through frequent communication with the dust bunnies, I presume). Everything is in its place and, to my knowing eyes, in order.

I remember having my wonderful college English teacher, the late and beloved Doreen G. Fernandez, tell our class how she had a library of a few thousand books that she arranged alphabetically by the authors' last names. She went on a vacation one time and came back to find that her library had become rearranged by size, thanks to an overly eager housekeeper. From what I heard, she eventually ended up donating her entire collection to the Ateneo library.

You have to consider then the complications that an overly eager housekeeper on her first week on the job would wreak on my still sanctuary, and then reassess the damages done by the fact that we have had two housekeeper replacements in the previous month alone. We're essentially looking at Where's Waldo here, except Waldo just happens to be a small dark gray box no bigger than a standard King James edition. No, I'm not about to donate all my stuff to anyone.

The search lasted for about an hour before I finally threw in the towel (more appropriately, I actually got a towel to wipe myself dry). I rediscovered a bunch of stuff from college and found some things that had no business being in my room. Of note were a box of cocoa mix from four Christmases ago (which still tastes like chocolate) and undisturbed bags containing Christmas gifts from particular years (an excellent reminder to get me cash instead). A good number of missing books turned up as well, including several which I haven't even opened since I bought them. I opened bags that contained bags and boxes that contained boxes. I would have been happy had I turned out money from many years ago that I had hidden and had completely forgotten about, but I would have been happiest had I actually found that little effects box. I dreaded that over time, it had somehow gotten transferred to the study room, which, far from being used for studying, was actually an annex to everybody's rooms (it's a refugee camp, a halfway house, and the afterlife combined). No way was I going to extend my operations to that room.

I recall lending the gizmo to someone just last year, also noting that he did return it to me. Already drenched and slightly showing allergic symptoms, I texted him, a rationalizing action more than a last resort. He responded in a couple of minutes and told me that he did return it to me, and not only that, I actually placed the effects box in the gig bag for my other guitar, along with my cables. I knew that of course, I just didn't remember. I didn't even bother checking to make sure because I'm that confident.

Having wasted an hour of my life, I decided to tell the world about my search, hoping that in doing so, I have also wasted several minutes of your sorry lives to make up for the sixty or so I have lost. Thanks for reading.

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