The vortex...

Dan here...

I believe that there is a vortex of space in every home where certain things dissappear to, and only the innocent hands of a child can reach into that space and pull them out. There is certainly no other way to explain it...

The light fixture and ceiling fan in my bedroom can be turned on and off with a remote control. The problem is, if you turn it off with the remote control, no matter how many hundred times you stand there like a dummy and flip the switch, the light won't come back on until you use the remote control. This is usually an annoying at worst system... until you lose the friggin' remote control. Then, you're just in the dark until you can find it.

Once I lost the remote control while the light was off, and you better believe I turned the house upside down trying to find it on at least five occasions. I looked every object in the house trying to find the thing. After all, you can only take so many stubbed toes. Alas, it was gone and I was due to have bloody stumps for foot digits the rest of my life.

Six weeks later, Noah was playing on my bed as he often would, and suddenly the light turned on. I looked over and there he was, happily playing with the remote control. Where did he get it? There's only one place he could get it... the vortex.

Of course, it's not always as complicated as I'd like to think. Sometimes things go randomly missing and find them in his diaper or down the leg of his pajamas. Maybe I just hadn't noticed the remote control wedged somewhere while I was changing his nappy. Who knows, all I know is that it is freaky. Very freaky.