Not having a lovely lady by my side, there was no-one to utter the now legendary phrase:
"Why is it always in the last place you look?"
Then I suddenly remembered Rune's "Law of Obviousity"*, and should have remembered to apply it and look in the least most obvious least most obvious place. For those unfamiliar with Rune's Law, in a nutshell, it's this:
"Everything has to be somewhere
and nothing can be anywhere other than where it is"
Now, at a first glance, this seems rather straightforward, but it's application is not. Try not to get a headache as I try to explain it:
Your item is lost, so where do you look? Normally, you'd look in the most obvious place - but if it's missing, then that certainly isn't where it'll be, coz you'd've found it already.
So, you start to look in the next most obvious place because everything has to be somewhere and nothing can be anywhere other than where it is, and when that fails, you move on to the next, then the next... etc, which is a bit of painstaking palaver. So, the best place to start looking would be in the least most obvious place.
However, if the least most obvious place is now the most obvious place to start, then clearly it's not the least most obvious anymore. And as we know it's missing, we know that it's not in the most obvious place, coz we'd've found it already.
So, having eliminated the most obvious location, and the least most obvious location, naturally it should be in the least most obvious least most obvious place.
Which means it will be in the original most obvious place, coz that is always the least most obvious least most obvious location there is.
Obviously, there are those that will claim that if it's in the original most obvious place to start with, then it's not missing. If so, why are they looking for it?
Or something.
* FOR A CASE STUDY OF THE APPLICATION OF RUNE'S LAW IN ACTION , I MOST HEARTILY RECOMMEND ROBERT RANKIN'S "THE DANCE OF THE VOODOO HANDBAG" WHERE RUNE EXPLAINS IT MUCH MORE CLEARLY THAT I EVER COULD. Which is a rather gormstery comment, when you think about it, because it will always be in the last place you look, for once you've found it, you're going to stop looking! Even if you found it in the first place you looked, that would still be the last place you looked!
