My Hubby loses things. I find them for him.

It's how our marriage works. 

I usually don't have a problem with this. I'm a good finder. I've got mad finding skills- Bloodhound skills.

This weekend, my Hubby asked, "Hey, have you seen my camera bag with my memory stick and battery in it."

This translates into, "I need you to find my camera bag with my memory stick and battery in it. Because, I have no idea where I put it or if I even remembered to bring it back from California. Because, you see I'm completely helpless when it comes to finding ANYTHING. If you told me you'd give me a million dollars to find the mustard jar in the pantry that is sitting front row, center, eye level on the shelf in front of me, I would not be able to do that. I'm helpless in that way. It's why I have you, Bloodhound Honey."

And usually I'm off like a shot, woofing and tracking.

But, I was in no mood to find his crap this weekend. 

I have company coming. Which means one thing.

The upstairs has to be cleaned.

Nothing puts me in a fouler mood than having to supervise the upstairs cleaning. In fact, nothing puts me in a fouler mood than having to go upstairs.

I have pigs for children. Actually, they're beyond pigs. They're dung beetles. And if you clicked on that link, I apologize for the first sentence, but that's my little princesses in a nut shell. 

I built this house all wrong. We designed it so that my hubby and I can eat, sleep, shower, watch TV and essentially live downstairs.

The children are relegated to the upstairs. We tried to create a living plan that would best help us ignore the children. 

But, I forgot about company. I should have made the upstairs the guest quarters and designed a dungeon for the children to live in. It would have been a better fit for all of us.

So, I didn't have time for camera bags and memory sticks. I was too busy decontaminating.

As he sat there helplessly, kind of-sort of looking around, (This would entail him sitting at his desk and craning his neck to one side to see if it was in his rather limited scope of finding vision.), I sighed impatiently and asked what I always ask, "Where did you have it last?"

And he answered the way he always answers, "I don't know. SOMEBODY took it and I don't where they put it."

It's a dance we've got down perfectly.

In my Hubby's world, there's always that insipid SOMEBODY who keeps taking his crap and hiding it from him, just to get their jolly on. In fact, it goes beyond just the lost items. SOMEBODY rears its ugly head, whenever The Hubby makes a mistake. Because you see, he doesn't make mistakes, SOMEBODY else makes them for him.

It could be the girls. It could be the neighbors. It could be the dog. One time, it was my family.

True Story: In our old house, our pool was solar heated. Meaning, it warmed up  to a pleasant, swimming temperature about May or June. Usually, mid-April, we were sticking our toes in and feeling that it was still a little too shivery.

We'd had a warm, brilliant April one year and the girls and I decided to brace the cool water. Surprisingly, it wasn't frigid. So, we jumped in and splashed and swam to our heart's content. The next day, we decided to have another pool day. The water seemed a little unseasonably warm, but, I just attributed it to the hot weather. 

The next day, it was a burning furnace. 

When I tried to swim underwater, the water was so hot, I thought it would smother me. I couldn't breathe in its fiery heat. It was time to turn the solar heat off.

I went out to our little fenced in pool equipment area to turn off the solar pump and discovered a rock-in-your-gut moment. 

The gas switch for the jacuzzi was switched to, ON.

I gasped and snapped it off, trying to remember the last time my Hubby was in the jacuzzi. He loves his jacuzzi, usually with a stogie and a glass of wine.

I couldn't remember. It had been awhile.

For those of us, who live in The Tropics, Jacuzzi heating is quite expensive. You dole out your gas very conservatively, taking care to shut it off as soon as jacuzzi time is over. And you NEVER use it to heat your pool. EVER.

I called the Hubby who was just as sick as I was at the thought of the heat it had taken to make our pool 500 degrees. And as I grilled him about his last jacuzzi soak, trying to evaluate how horrifying the gas bill would be, he announced. "I always shut it off. SOMEBODY else did it. I bet your family came over and switched it on, you know, as a joke."

I haven't been speechless many times in our marriage. But, that one did the trick.

After I recovered, I said, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure all 50,000 of my siblings, their spouses, their kids, and my parents, convoyed over to our house in the middle of the night, tiptoed around to the back, tee-heeing all the way, and with flashlights, figured out the complicated makeup of our pool system, found the gas switch and covering their mouths, to suppress the laughter bubbling up at the thought of costing you a great fortune, they held hands and switched on the gas, whispering, 'Now THAT is one freakin', great, practical joke!'"

He said, "It's true. I know your family did it. Because, I know I didn't do it."

When I got that $800.00 bill, my only thought was, "Damn family, but what great pranksters!"

Since, I didn't have time to look for the camera bag because I was wearing protective gear and using hazardous chemicals to make the upstairs livable, it went unfound.

Until this morning. 

I got home from taking the girls to school and Hubby announced proudly, he'd found the camera bag all by himself. SOMEBODY had placed it in the closet cabinet where the camera equipment belongs. But, that SOMEBODY had piled some of Hubby's other camera gear on top of it. I'm sure on purpose, just to get his goat. 

He was so proud of himself and I was happy for both of us. I still didn't have the time. I'm not finished decontaminating. 

Our elation was only temporary, though. He opened the bag and his face fell. It was empty. There wasn't a memory stick or battery to be found.

That jokester family of mine! I've got to call around and see who's hiding the memory stick. I bet you anything its Matthew, my two-year-old nephew. He had an awfully suspicious grin on his cute little face, when he left my house last week.

Today's Have to Have Download: "Show Me What I'm Looking For" by Carolina Liar. The inspiration is obvious.

But, I do have to say, I've been waiting to use this one, to growl about a pet peeve of mine. I love this song. I love the Frayish sound they've got and this song is just great. But, the other night I was so disgusted when I heard this on an Overstock commercial. How I hate it when artists sell out. It ruins the song for me. I don't want to connotate their fabulous song with online shopping. Just like I don't want to think about mops when one of my favorite oldies, "Baby, Come Back" plays on my Ipod. The world needs more musical integrity, less commercial sell-outs.