![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Copy-of-Taming-the-Devil-1.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nby Arthur Mackeown<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not as forgetful as I seem, you know. I never lose things by accident, not really, just accidentally on purpose. I \u2018lose\u2019 them on buses, in shops, on park benches, even in church, when there\u2019s a wedding or some other big do that brings in lots of people. Never anything valuable, of course, just books or newspapers, or a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. Sometimes I leave old keys behind me, keys that have nothing to open any more, but still give me a good excuse for going back to look for them. People can be ever so nice to a helpless, doddery old chap like me when they think he\u2019s having a \u2018senior moment.\u2019 In my day we called it something else, only you can\u2019t say that sort of thing any more. I still keep up with all the modern\u2014what\u2019s the word?\u2014phraseology, that\u2019s it\u2014thanks to the T.V. It\u2019s amazing what you can learn from the box.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m rambling. Get to the point, Arthur, which is this: When I say I never lose things by accident I tell a lie. I really did lose something once. Six months ago I lost Rex. That\u2019s how all this started. Rex is my dog. I don\u2019t know if he was actually lost, or if he simply had business to take care of. All I do know is I took him down to the park, like I do every morning, and let him off the leash to run about a bit, and he never came back. I looked for him everywhere. He\u2019s all I\u2019ve got since Dorothy died, and the kids moved away. I asked everybody I saw if they\u2019d seen him, and some of them helped me search for him. A policeman even came and took down his particulars. And then, several hours after he disappeared, the silly mutt turned up again all by himself.<\/p>\n
Now, my Gran used to say that from the smallest seed an oak tree grows, and it\u2019s true, because I\u2019ve never looked back from that day to this. Thanks to Rex I\u2019d been somebody again for an entire afternoon. And people remembered me afterwards, as well. When I saw them again in the park they would wish me good morning, and pat the dog and maybe make a remark or two about the weather. Hardly a hectic social life, but a little\u2019s a lot when you get to my age, and spend most of your time cooped up on your todd, with only the telly and a flatulent mongrel for company.<\/p>\n
Since then I\u2019ve been losing things in earnest. In fact I can say, with some pride, that I\u2019m famous for it. When I walk down the street today there\u2019s always some joker who calls out \u201cHow\u2019s it going, then, Mr. H’ Still got your \u2018ead screwed on, I see,\u201d and I don\u2019t mind at all. Most of them mean well enough. Main thing is I\u2019m not invisible any more.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m not as forgetful as I seem, you know. I never lose things by accident, not really, just accidentally on purpose. I \u2018lose\u2019 them on buses, in shops, on park benches, even <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1727"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65829,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727\/revisions\/65829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}