Desperately Seeking Something

Because I don’t spend enough time looking for things in my daily life, I bought a word search puzzle book. The idea is to find and circle words that are hidden inside a box with a bunch of unalphabetized letters, which is good because finding the other kind would be too much like filing. Word Search is like a scavenger hunt only you don’t have to go next door to your spooky neighbor’s house asking for a kitchen knife or a set of hot curlers.

My first search was for a pencil. Ever the optimist, I looked in the cup on my desk. I found four broken blue crayons, two fountain pens with no ink, and a petrified Milkbone. I briefly thought about trying to use the Milkbone, but the Dachshund is possessive and I’m pretty sure she can take me in a fight. She is not known for fair play.

I looked under the sofa cushions, in the glove compartment of the car, and in my jewelry box, where I found the safety pin I needed last week for an unbecoming wardrobe malfunction. Later that afternoon while doing the laundry, I found a pencil stub in the lint trap of the dryer. The eraser was melted, but if we wait for all our blessings to come at once there will be nothing left for the Rapture, so I forged ahead.

I sat down with my puzzle book and my pencil stub. Immediately I found several words. None of them were in the word list and I’m not sure that all of them were English. At least one of them made the dog blush. Perhaps I needed an eraser after all. I scratched out my ineligible answers with the safety pin and circled a likely looking word using all the letters on one side of the puzzle. If this were Scrabble, I could clinch the victory with a Q and an unabridged dictionary.

About that time the Dachshund tackled me in an announced Milkbone raid and broke the point of my pencil stub. So now I’m off to search for the pencil sharpener. But that’s okay. I haven’t found any more words to circle anyway. I think I’ll write to Vanna and ask to buy a vowel.

Wonder where I can find her address?