Unsolved Mysteries: The Universe Eats Things

I have a giant metal storage cabinet in my classroom that I keep secure with a red and silver combination lock. The cabinet contains many very very valuable items. DVDs and photocopied materials and last years exams and my annotated copies of various texts.

These things may not sound valuable to you-- or to most people on the planet-- but they are worth a lot to me. Plus, I store my workbag and Lenovo Thinkpad in there at night. And there's detention in my room after school. All kinds of people wandering in and out. I don't need them perusing my Henry IV part 1 marginalia. So I like that lock.

More often than not, at the start of the day-- which is very early in the morning-- I take the lock off the cabinet and put it down somewhere weird (often inside the cabinet) and "lose" it for a few minutes. Then, inevitably, I find it and lock up the cabinet again.

Except for last Wednesday. I lost the lock, and even with the help of the sixteen kids in my Philosophy class, we could not find it. Sixteen kids searching the room! It seemed like a philosophical thought experiment, but it wasn't.

Is existence real? Can we trust our perception? Are we living in a simulation? Have I gone mad?

No. No. Yes. Yes.

I wish there was some kind of resolution to the story, other than I've descended into madness. The lock was in my pocket! The lock had fallen into the cuff of my pants! The lock was hidden in plain sight!

No such lock.

Where in Sam-fucking-Hill is that lock? It's got to turn up . . . and it's not behind the two (very heavy) filing cabinets next to the giant metal cabinet. I looked.

I was in denial for a couple of day-- my cabinet lockless-- but I'm bringing a new lock to school on Monday.

So I've solved the problem.

But will I ever solve the mystery?