If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

I found an index card on the kitchen table on which I had previously written some information about a special cross that I had purchased as a gift for my mother. I had placed the card and cross in a cardboard box. I then put the box in a drawer in the bedroom dresser.

Picture a box only slightly smaller than a tissue box. Hold your hands that far apart. You get the general idea of the size of the box now, right?

Me: Mom, this card was in a box in the dresser. Why did you take it out?

Mom: I didn't take it out. There wasn't a box in the dresser. The card was just in the drawer.

Me: No, the card was in a box. I put it there myself. I put the box in the dresser drawer.

Mom: There wasn't a box in the drawer.

Me: Yes. There was. It was a brown cardboard box. The box was this (spreading my hands apart the approximate length of a tissue box) big.

Mom: There wasn't a box in there. I cleaned out the dresser today.

Me: Yes, there was a box in the dresser. I put it in there myself some time ago. It was still there the last time I checked - last week.

Mom: I didn't see a box and didn't take that card out of anything. It was just in the drawer.

Me: The card was in the box. I put it in there. The box contained a cross. I put it in the drawer. It was to be your Easter present. I wrote "Happy Easter Momma" on the box. It was a brown cardboard box. Only slightly smaller than a kleenex box (again, showing her with my hands, the approximate size of the box).

Mom: It was not in there. There never was a box in there.

(This conversation was repeated about 6 times, all the while searching through the drawers as my mother continually insisted that there was never anything like that in the dresser.)

Me: (very exasperated - finally giving up) Well, when you do find it. That was to be your Easter gift. Happy Easter.

Mom: It will show up with the other thing I can't find.

Me: (deciding to give it one last try - I'm hard headed. I admit it.) The box contained a cross on a little stand (This may have been the most important piece of info. Had I said that earlier I could have saved myself a headache). It was about this (holding my fingers about 6 inches apart) big.

Mom: OH. I found that. I put that cross on the shelf.

Me: WHAT!?! (seeing the cross high on the bookshelf) THAT'S IT!!!! Where did you find that cross?

Mom: In the dresser.

Me: Isn't that what I said? A cross in a brown cardboard box in a drawer in the dresser.

Mom: You said a "box with a cross in it." I thought you meant a little cross on a chain that you would wear around your neck.

Me: So where's the box?

Mom: There was no box.

Me: (sighing) Happy Easter.