WIT STOP

A Thing Is Lost or It Isn't, Like, for Instance, a Canyon or a Favorite Pair of Golf Shorts

TEXT BY GENE PERRET ILLUSTRATION BY MAURICE LEWIS There's at least one oxy-moronic sign in Arizona that I am aware of (you may have seen others). This one is in the Grand Wash Cliffs Wilderness on the Arizona Strip along Parashant Road. It's a sign that points toward Hidden Canyon. Do you see the contradiction? If there's a road sign directing you to Hidden Canyon, it can't be hidden, can it? There's no marker telling you where the Lost Dutchman's gold mine is because it's actually lost.

A thing is either hidden or it's not; it's lost or it isn't. Take my favorite pair of golf shorts, for example: "Honey," I said, "have you seen my red golf shorts?"

"What red golf shorts?" my wife replied.

"You see the ones I'm wearing, the green shorts with the orange golf balls all over them?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they're just like these only red with purple golf balls."

"So you can tell them apart, I suppose?"

I said, "I'm trying to be serious here."

She said, "That's hard to do wearing those shorts."

I was a bit offended. "I like these golf shorts," I said.

She asked, "Where did you ever get them, anyway?"

I told her, "I won them in a golf tournament at the club."

"You won them?" she asked.

"Good heavens, what did the losers get?"

I said, "Never mind that. The point is, I can't find the red ones. I wonder if you know where they are."

She said, "They must be in your drawer."

I said, "They're not in my drawer."

She said, "Well then, you must have left them somewhere."

"I didn't leave them anywhere," I said. "That's one thing about my golf game. I always try to finish in the same shorts I started with."

She said, "Then I don't know where they are."

I said, "I put them in the laundry, and that's the last I saw of them. You must have lost them."

Now it was her turn to be offended. "I must have lost them?"

"Exactly," I said. "Once I put them in the clothes hamper, you assume responsibility for them. You are obligated to exercise reasonable diligence."

I thought I noticed a slight bit of steam coming out of her ears. She said, "First of all, you rarely put clothes in the hamper. Second of all, I do the laundry in this house. I wash it, dry it, fold it, and usually put it away. I don't become its legal guardian."

I said, "I don't see what you're getting so upset about. All I said was that you might have lost the golf shorts in the laundry."

She said, "I don't lose things in the laundry."

I said, "I have a drawer upstairs full of single socks. I have one blue sock, one green sock, probably one argyle. I've had some of them in that drawer for years. Do you know what that means?"

"You're cheap?" she said.

"It means you have lost socks."

She said, "It doesn't necessarily mean I lost socks. Maybe I found some."

I was relentless in spite of her attempted humor. "How do you explain all those lonesome socks if you've never lost any laundry?"

She said, "Okay. I can't explain what happens to those socks that disappear from the wash. No, wait a minute. Maybe I can."

This I definitely wanted to hear.

She said, "I do remember one time. I was leaving the laundry room, but for some reason, I hesitated outside the doorway."

"Yeah."

"And I distinctly heard one sock say to another, 'The breakout is at 2 P.M. this afternoon. Pass it on.'"

"That's very funny," I said.

"I thought so," she said.

"Well, I can see I'm getting nowhere here."

"Not with no shorts and only one sock, you're not."

I surrendered. "Well, I couldn't find the golf shorts, and I thought you might be able to help. Thank you for your cooperation."

She said, "Look, my laundry record has been pretty good over the years. I have lost a few things in the process, but it's a small percentage. And many of the things you never saw again, you should not have seen again worn-out T-shirts, socks that had lost their elasticity, unattractive shorts."

Aha. A confession of sorts.

"You mean, you might accidentally have lost them on purpose?"

"I'm not admitting anything. But I hated those shorts."

"But then why would you leave the green ones with the orange golf balls?"

"Maybe to remind you to be grateful that the red ones with the purple golf balls are gone."