A week of frustration

Well, my son gave me a new processor for my aging PC as a birthday present. A mutual friend was roped into installing the new chip, but of course, as things with computers always go, a number of things blew up along the way. So about a week later, I now have what is essentially a new computer, risen from the carcass of my old one, reinforced with new boards and chips and DIMMs and all that.

But simple computer resurrection isn't why I'm writing this.

Yesterday I had to claw through all the boxes still unpacked in my basement to find my Windows 7 install disks. (I moved in February but there are so many boxes still unopened.) And as I'd feared, I couldn't locate the box. The Box.

The Box was the very last thing I packed before leaving my old place. It contained the really important things that I wanted to save from the relocation chaos: software install disks, some books, papers.... and all my knitting needles and hand tools. I left The Box with my dad as I went to accompany the movers to the new place. Chaos reigned those first days. I assumed The Box was in my bedroom with the other top priority things. I kept scratching my head, wondering where it was. You have to understand that I'm very, very disorganized now. But I knew The Box had to be in my place, because I gave it to my Dad to carry. So I assumed I was just simply too scatterbrained to find it.

But after yesterday's search, the evidence was undeniable. I looked in every corner of every room, and throughout the entire basement. The Box isn't here. It's not that I'm oblivious to its location. Somehow, it's gone. An unhappy victim of the trickster moving gods.

Never mind the $200 I had to spend to get new Windows install disks. My knitting needles are gone.

Twenty-five years of collecting. Like, the fine steel sock needles that were custom-ground for me. Several dozen circular needles of all sizes and lengths. Bamboo, steel, birch straights, DPNs. Gone. Somehow my crochet hooks made it here fine. (Separate box. I didn't pack them so carefully.) But I don't know how I'm going to replace the needles. I don't have the money to rebuild the sets again.

So, farewell my lovely tools and all the memories that you held. I hope that you found your way to a new home and are making someone else happy. The alternative -- being dumped into landfill -- is really too bleak to consider.

Comments

[June]

Oof, that's rough! :( It seems funny to say "sorry for your loss," but it also seems appropriate here. No chance that it's stashed in your father's house?

[Elaine]

Thanks, June. I checked with my parents and no luck. I keep hoping that someday, somewhere in an odd dusty corner, a box comes to light that hasn't been seen for years, and inside are that needles and photos that got lost. Until then, I just have to move on. Fortunately I still have my crochet hooks. They'd be even harder to replace than my needles, since many more of them were custom made.

[Elizabeth]

Ouch! I hope you find it someday. Two moves ago we lost a box - when we packed up for the last move we found it again. It was disguised as a box that had been unpacked and then had packing paper stored in it. As I started using the packing paper, suddenly stuff appeared about a third of the way down.