Good Ways to Avoid Saying You Lost Something

By Lee Kirschner

Essentially every second of middle school, I was missing something. My pencils. My notebook. My family’s tickets to see my graduation. It annoyed one of my friends so much that she got me a pre-organized pencil case for my birthday so she wouldn’t have to watch me dig around for one daily. The pencil case itself, of course, I promptly lost, then found, then lost, then found again. 

Anyway, I’m a tiny bit better about it now, but through the years, I’ve acquired some really good phrases to use when you don’t want to say you lost something. 

1. “I misplaced it.” It’s a classic, but the thing is, everyone knows what you mean. It gets old. Moving on!

2. “Just give me, like, five seconds and I’ll find…Oh, would you look at that! (The bell just rang, someone’s calling me, I need to use the bathroom, et cetera).” Perfect diversion. If they try to bring it up later, just distract them again. 

3. “No, no, I didn’t lose it…I actually chose to get rid of it.” This is good if it is something consequential only to you and no one else. Otherwise, someone might get mad at you for getting rid of something they lent you. Isn’t that ridiculous? 

4. “Oh my goodness, in all my rush to escape the giant bear that chased me through the forest last night and tried to eat me, I must have dropped it! I’m so sorry.” Making up (or not making up?) an outlandish story about something really bad happening to you will automatically make the person a) understand that you have a really good excuse and b) make them feel guilty about harping on or complaining about something as trivial as a lost object.