Where, Oh Where Can It Be?

Ben's friends were coming over on Thanksgiving weekend and they were excited to play pool. It was a fun activity they had done many times in their youth and they were anxious to try their hand at it when they came together again to relive old times.

There was just one problem...

The #9 ball was missing.

There have been times when the little grandchildren think those billiard balls are toys and they get them out of the pockets and play with them. Sometimes they roll them all around on the pool table, sometimes they drop them off the pool table and sometimes they try to bounce or throw them around.

I'm not blaming anyone here, but it was hard not to assume one of the small darlings had considered that particular ball his/her toy and carried it off somewhere to play with it.

For some reason I kept thinking back about Rebecca's story of one of her daughters hiding things all around the house and she still--to this day--hasn't found the tomato that has remained missing. It just seemed like there was no telling where that #9 ball might be hiding.

One day I went down to the basement and looked everywhere for that ball. I looked through all the toys in the three toy buckets. I looked in the storage room in the place I used to hide the ping pong balls and billiard balls so the little kids wouldn't be able to find them. I looked in the desk drawers. I looked everywhere and came up empty-handed and we decided to go ahead and purchase a replacement ball because it was nowhere to be found.

After placing the new #9 ball in the missing spot, Glen felt the need to look for himself to see if he could find the missing ball. I reminded him of the thorough search I'd made of the basement earlier in the day and told him that ball could have been missing for the whole 2 years Ben was gone on his mission for all we knew. I told him one of the little grandkids could possibly even have thrown it away.

Glen walked straight over to the garbage can in the corner by the pool table.

He lifted the lid and peered inside.

Something in the pile of smashed soda cans and empty candy bags caught his eye.

Who would ever believe we would be so lucky as to find a ball that had been thrown in the garbage. Glen had a feeling he would find the ball that day and there it was--staring right up at him.

Here's just hoping that if another billiard ball ever goes missing again, it better be the yellow #9.