I spent much of last week looking for the electric bill

Actually, it wasn't just the electric bill I lost.

I had been carrying the electric bill around with me, in my briefcase, because it is one of the mid-month bills, and one I've been paying faithfully. ComEd will turn off your power without a backward glance if you fall too far behind.

I remembered I had been carrying it around, but I had no recollection of putting it anywhere.

Meanwhile, at work, I was looking for a copy of an insurance policy on a particular file. I'd been carrying this file around with me for weeks, during my recent appellate brief binge, thinking (allegedly) that I might get to the opinion letter on that file as a change of pace after dinner or over the weekend. As if. Anyway, though I had the file, I couldn't find the policy.

Yes, this too had been in my briefcase. Upon inspection, I discovered that my briefcase was manufactured by Bermuda Triangle Faux-Leather Goods, Inc. I took out each and every paper in the thing -- the creators of Dr. Who may have been inspired by my briefcase -- but I couldn't find the policy.

I tore apart my office looking for it -- putting mounds -- mountains -- of paper into the recycling. That, sadly, had been the probable fate of the policy for which I was looking. It was probably swept up in some other panic clean-up and discarded after first being misidentified.

The electric bill became the subject of a separate search during the course of all this. I began to suspect -- after getting rid of all that paper -- that my electric bill might have been accidentally swept up in the maelstrom.

At home, meanwhile, while Long Suffering Spouse was staying up late every night working on the Christmas cookies, I continued looking for the electric bill.

My wife likes to listen to Christmas carols as she bakes, so I was supposed to pull out a selection of CDs for her and put them on. And in the course of that I noticed I was missing a couple. Where could these be?

And the more I looked for things, at home or at work, the more I found things I didn't know were missing. Yet.

It was not a particularly productive week.

Unless you count finding the electric bill -- yesterday -- as an achievement.

And you still can't see my desk.

Some people who say they have to get organized are fishing for a compliment (you're one of the most organized people I know!). When I say this, however, I achieve a new achievement in understatement.