I'd like to share two really strange happenings from my life of late with the Innmates. I don't *think* that I am crazy, but I cannot explain either of these events.

Event #1: Two weeks ago, I lost my iPod. I frequently listen to it as I walk from my car to my job, with the iPod in my shirt pocket (I'm a shirt and tie guy).

On Friday, two weeks ago, it was rather chilly, and I had worn my leather jacket. Friday is an exception to the shirt and tie rule - we are allowed to dress more casually, so I was wearing a pullover (polo type) shirt - no pocket. That morning, I placed my iPod and headphones into the inner jacket pocket, but did not listen to it nor put the headphones on.

About three blocks later, I noticed that my headphone cord was hanging out of the bottom of my jacket. Upon further inspection, I realized that I had NOT placed the items into my pocket, but had accidentally slid them into the liner of the jacket (which does not attach at the bottom). I retraced my steps, but the iPod was gone. I double checked my car, just in case I had left it inside, but no dice. It would have been on the front seat where I had placed it (and had been charging it on the way to work), but that was not the case.

It was gone. There can be no doubt of this.

On tuesday night (Veteran's Day), I stopped to get gas on my way home. I had forgotten that the banks would be closed due to the holiday, and had NO cash on me, so I was scrounging through the car for change to buy enough to get me home. I went to check the back floorboard in the hopes that I'd dropped a quarter through the driver's seat (I had), when I noticed something on the back seat.

My iPpod.

I NEVER go into the back seat of my car. I certainly had not had my iPod back there. Yet, there it was!

---

Event #2: My wife and I are buying Christmas presents for the kids here and there in an effort to avoid a last minute rush. She had purchased a video game for my son off of eBay - it was new in the factory-sealed package, and was able to save about $15 buying it this way.

She showed it to me on the day that it arrived (last Thursday or Friday, I believe), then took it out of the shipping materials and placed it in a bag in our closet. I watched her do this.

Well, our closet is a disaster area. She decided to straighten it up a bit, to organize, to put all of the presents together. Only, she couldn't find the game.

She spent two days searching for it. Took EVERYTHING out of the closet - clothes off of sheleves, everything. It was gone.

I told her to not worry, it would show up, she'd just misplaced it when putting other items away. But it truly did seem to be gone.

Yesterday, she went to get the mail from our mailbox. Guess what was there?

The video game. In the shipping envelope.

This is absolutely not possible. I saw it in the house, she saw it in the house. We both remember her putting it up. She had even given her eBay feedback, which we never do until we have safe delivery (we have been cheated before).

Mass hysteria? A shared hallucination? But why did she leave feedback last week if she imagined it?


Creepy, man. I am living in the Twilight Zone.

All I can say to the ipod one was a friendly coworker probably put it in the back seat. but the game? I have no idea.

It’s the little blue dudes!

Methinks you’ve been slipping backstage in the space-time continuum, boss… let’s see if I can explain this properly.

Think of the passage of Time as the progression of an endless train of boxcars, with each car representing one minute of ‘linear time’… got that pictured? Okay, now, take a look at that train and you’ll notice that, between each of the boxcars/minutes is an empty space (or void if you prefer) occupied by nothing but a small link that keeps one minute connected to the ones that precede and/or follow it, right? Right. Now, if you will, imagine that every minute in history is essentially a separate world, which must be built, maintained, and torn down once the world finishes with it.

All of this time maintenance is performed by a bunch of faceless blue dudes who, while we ‘mortals’ are stuck in that limbo between minutes, are busy tearing down the world in the boxcar that we just left and rebuilding it in the next boxcar in the train (with sight modifications, of course). Now, tearing down the world and replacing everything in it with exact duplicates isn’t an easy job by any means… even when you’ve got a huuuuuge team of freaky blue guys doing all the work… and getting it all done in that negligible span between minutes makes it even trickier. It’s hurry, hurry, hurry, rush, rush, rush to the nth degree for the poor bluies, man, so it’s not unusual that, every now and again, things might seemingly disappear only to reappear later in a place where “we could have sworn we already looked” or, sometimes, even in a place that there is “no possible way it could have been.” This happens because the blue guys either forget to put something back or put it back in the wrong place, etc…

Think about it… how many times have you gone looking for your car keys (or whatever). You get ready to leave for work in the morning and go to the spot where you’re 100% sure you put your keys last night but, when you get there, the keys are nowhere to be found. So, you start backtracking trying to figure out where you might have put your keys since you obviously didn’t put them where you thought you had, right? Usually, you get just to the point where you’ve convinced yourself that the keys have simply ‘vanished’ … you’re aggravated, annoyed, and probably verging on questioning your sanity… then, as you pass by the spot where you actually remember leaving your keys the night before, bing, bang, boom, there they are… right where you left them. You look puzzled, question your sanity once more because you know that you already looked there, then shrug it off as weird and off to work you go.

That’s the blue guys, dude… they forgot to put your keys back where they found them and, in one of the spans of limbo between minutes when you were searching for your keys, they remembered to put them back.

Time, a handy fiction to explain why everything doesn't happen all at once. Or maybe we're the fiction, moving minute by minute ... through the Twilight Zone.

I park four blocks from where I work (in an assigned lot). I don't know anyone there. My walk takes me through some heavily traveled sidewalks.

Oh, and I keep my car locked.

Those two events sure seem out of the ordinary. I wonder if you leave you car windows open just a bit and someone found you I pod outside you car and just dropped it in. That is a possible, plausible explanation I have for that event, but the second one with the video is just weird.

Someone took the game out of your closet, resealed it and put it back in the mailbox after you opened it, commented on it and hid it.

I blame gnomes.

...supervised by a gnome that has a face and wears yellow-coveralls and is strangely reminiscent of that dude from Curious George.

I'm tellin' ya, folks... it's a matter of minutes.

I agree with the gnome theory.

As I stated, it was COLD. The windows were rolled up tight. So that doesn't work. Besides, how would someone have picked my car out of the lot?

You're kidding, right?

Personally, I think it's your guardian angel. Since he's also a DM ('cause that only makes sense), he likes to play with your mind a bit before saving your *ss.

The first one is a simple one. You must have dropped it in your car, then someone who has access to your car finds it and puts it in the back-seat. There were good three days between losing the iPod until you found it, right? Plenty of opportunities for someone else to swoop in and find it in one of those overlooked places. Also enough time to forget about it too.

The other one is a bit more of a mystery. I bet you will eventually find another copy of the video game lying somewhere amidst unsorted stuff. The one you later found in your mailbox was, most likely, another copy that was accidentally sent to you.

Those are the only logical ideas I can think of. Of course, when every logical idea has been proven wrong the illogical one, regardless of how absurd it may sound, is often the correct one.

Yeah, my wife and I wondered if, for some reason, the eBay seller sent me a second copy of the game by accident. A longshot, sure, but plausible.

The first? Two weeks went by without me finding the iPOd - which was sitting right on the back seat.

My car stays locked when I am not in it. I do not park in a lot with anyone that knows me. The lot, while pretty full, seldom has anyone going in and out at the same time as me.

I don't see how a stranger on the street saw my iPod on the ground, carried it to my lot, opened the lock, and placed it in an area of the car I never use. It does not make sense.


I'm not one for "stories of the mysterious", but this is one.

Do do do do do do do do

That's the twilight zone theme, in case you were wondering

Your kids are playing pranks on you guys.

When I said "has access to your car" I was talking about your wife or a family member. Two weeks is plenty of time to find and forget about an iPod, and if you hardly ever use the back-seat I'm surprised you found it at all

And just so you know, there is more to life than work. If all you can think about is the lot where you work you need to cut down the hours man

But Skari - I had the iPod while walking to work. I dropped it on said sidewalk. This is some 45 minutes from my house, so no way a family member found it.

Which is why the Twilight Zone theme applies.