Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve misplaced my cellphone. When I’m home, I keep it on my desk. Except when I don’t. And apparently I didn’t. Thus begins a frantic search, some variation of which I undertake practically every day and sometimes twice a day for all manner of misplaced items.

Step 1: I dig through the piles on my desk a second time. It’s so unusual for me to put things where they belong that even saying they belong there is a stretch. Consequently I don’t always look there as carefully as I should. On rare occasions I’m thrilled to find something I thought was missing right where it belongs.

But not today. I do, however, find my car keys and the lid to my food processor, neither of which I even realized were missing yet.

Step 2: I race through the house looking in all the places I’ve been known to put the missing object until I got around to putting it where it “belongs.” In the case of my cellphone, that’s a very long list, including but not limited to my kitchen counter, dresser, bed, coffee table, purse and the pockets of every jacket I own. Then I look in all those places again. You’re probably thinking that if it wasn’t there the first time, it probably won’t be the second time either. And you’d be right.

Step 3: I look in all the places I haven’t been known to leave it—yet. There are fewer of those than you might think—closets, kitchen cupboards, dresser drawers and the refrigerator and dishwasher. This might seem like a waste of time to you, but I once found my phone in the garbage can in the garage so it seems unwise to limit the scope of my search.

Step 4: I give up, exhausted, and trust that eventually the item will show up, most likely when I’m looking for some other missing object. It’s amazing how often this works. I regularly find things I gave up looking for long ago while I’m looking for something else I won’t find until I’m looking for another misplaced item months from now. Whew! Yes it’s complicated. Plus it takes too long.

I do have another option though. I could be patient, wait for my husband to come home and have him call my phone. I don’t like this plan for three reasons. One, I may have silenced my phone. I do that often.

Two, when I tell him I’ve misplaced it, he’s likely to say, “Again? Is it silenced?” He does that often. And it’s hard on our marriage.

And three, I don’t know how to be patient.

Instead I make another mad dash through the house checking all the places where I leave my phone when I don’t leave it on my desk. Then I check all the places I haven’t left it. In case you’re wondering, it’s still not in any of those places.

Step 5: I begin systematically dismantling the kitchen, intending to do the same to every room in the house. Actually systematically isn’t quite the right word, unless that’s how you describe the way a tornado clears a cornfield.

But then I hear the garage door open. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself and when my husband comes in, I tell him as nonchalantly as I can that I’ve misplaced my cellphone. To his credit he doesn’t say, “Again? Is it silenced?” He does say, “What are you doing under the kitchen sink?”

I tell him I’m reorganizing the cleaning supplies. He looks suspicious but before he can question me further, I ask him to call me. He does and we hear a faint ringing coming from down the hall. I follow it to my office. And there’s my phone … under the piles … on my desk.

Dorothy Rosby is the author of Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time and other books. Contact her at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.