I lost my water bottle last week, a metal one with blue to green gradient and a few stickers, at school. I had it during A lunch, then found out I didn’t the next day when I patted my backpack pockets after getting off my bus in the morning. The bottle wasn’t expensive, but what frustrated me was I lost yet another knickknack as I’ve seemingly done hundreds of times in my short lifetime.

I feel as if the world opens up a black hole while I’m not looking and swallows a singular item, usually an object of great importance; or perhaps there is a tiny imp hiding nearby at all times, waiting for a cool tool of mine to play with behind my back, who has no intention to give anything back. All magical possibilities aside, I am most likely only forgetful or need to carry fewer school supplies around so I don’t have as many objects to lose.

I take slight comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in my mishaps, seeing as how 20% of people lose something every week, according to an article by New York Daily News. Luckily for me, I don’t own a car yet, and thus I have no car keys — which Americans most commonly misplace, according to the article. Thank goodness for school buses and parental support.

I still remember how loss of a toy affected me as a kid. When I was around six or seven, my family and I went on a trip, and we all had to stay overnight at a hotel. At the time, I had a golden, fuzzy teddy bear from the Dollar Store that I had been doting on for months; I read to him in the broken English I knew at the time, sang to him and played with him everyday. I loved my little stuffed companion.

I recall taking him out of my tiny backpack so I could sleep with him on my pillow that night at the hotel, even though my mom warned me not to. She told me I would forget about him in the morning, and he would disappear forever. It’s no surprise what happened next: I left him there, all alone on that hotel pillow and cried myself to sleep when I found out the next night. 

I am much more careful about keeping track of my belongings nowadays, but my efforts are clearly not enough. There are tips out there for my problem; from creating go-to places for phones, keys and wallets to tidying up my room, the Internet has a plethora of ways to not lose our most precious items. Each time something disappears on me, I should strive to think back to this advice, and maybe I will actually stop misplacing what’s mine so often. Before happening upon these articles, however, I merely kept a mental inventory of all my most important items, like my laptop, phone and pencil case. The problem with this method is that I am usually focused on schoolwork or various other tasks at the end of class that I forget about my list until I realize I’ve left a various object. 

Sticking to these tricks obviously won’t guarantee that I’ll stop losing my stuff, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try. I actually found my water bottle while I was writing this; I’d left it in the journalism room, and when I walked in by chance, it was on a desk at the front of the classroom. The fact that it was there doesn’t make much sense, as I remember losing it on an A day, but I only have that class on B days. Perhaps my impression was wrong, but maybe there really is a miniature creature who wanted to borrow my water bottle for a few days.

From small incidents to big losses (I still get a bit heart-broken thinking about my teddy bear), these occasions of loss are a reminder that I should either follow the advice and be more mindful of my belongings the next time I go anywhere, or be more than mindful for the relentless, thieving imp.

How have you lost an object? Let us know in the comments below.