Have you ever had something inexplicably disappear...?

[Basvarken]

I have a drawer full of orphan socks.
Not only the red ones (I don't have any red socks) but black ones, blue ones, brown ones etc. all get sucked into a black hole

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Black_hole

[PhilT]

Years ago my son borrowed my wife's mobile/cell phone. An few hours after he got back my wife asked where the phone was. He said he'd put it on the kitchen table. It wasn't there. He searched his room, his car, the rest of the house, nothing. 3 months later we found it under a tree in the garden. It still worked. I think the cat had been using it to organise his social life.

[Pilgrim]

Most frustrating lost item incident....

I had to adjust the rocker arms on my '66 GTO...not a very time consuming project.  When I had it all back together, I set a short 3/8 adapter on the trim pan that spanned the are between radiator and grille, reached past it, then came back to snap it onto the wrench and turn the last - very last - bolt, to finish the procedure.

It was gone.  And I absolutely needed it for the last bolt - I could not reach it without that adapter, and it was the only adapter I had.

I thought, OK, maybe I hit it with my elbow.  Checked the floor.  Nope.  Checked all around the trim pan.  Nope.  Checked the motor. Nope.

Re-checked everything.  Nope.  Bounced the car up and down multiple times in case the adapter had fallen down into the engine compartment.  Got down on hands and knees, got flashlight to look under car in case it had rolled somewhere.  Nope.

Circled the car, checking the floor inch by inch.  Nope.

By this time, I was exercising substantial linguistic skills, and even inventing new ones.  I was 30 seconds from being done, and stuck.

Finally I got down on my back and slid under the car.  There it was.

It had fallen through the hole provided for the hood latch, landed on a half-inch wide metal strut behidn the grille, and balanced there despite all the car bouncing I had done.

After inventing a number of new names for it and probably jumping up and down, I then used it and finished the job.

I have thought of this event many times, and it encourages me to be more methodical, more thoughtful, and more calm.  It was not a pretty episode.

[OldManC]

I can't remember which car it was but there was a small plate just under the oil pan. How the small, open ended wrench got from the top of the radiator to lodging itself in between the oil pan and that plate I'll never know, but I found it there six months later!

[Highlander]

The aviation engineers nightmare was dropping a small component inside an engine, on the "pan", between flights... I know...