Wasn't a Vortex, Must've Been a Gnome

We moved into our home almost two years ago.  My son was a little under a year old and he was always into everything, as most pre-toddlers are.  His favorite place to ransack was one of our kitchen drawers which holds all of our random utensils (whisks, spatulas, beaters, and such).  We had child locks on them, but he always managed to finagle his way into that one drawer.  Because of this, we were sure to keep it free of any dangerous objects and saw no problem with him rifling through it every now and again.

A couple weeks later, the inevitable happened.  We found the handle to a spatula.  Only the handle.  Where was the rest?  We searched and searched and searched.  After a few months (yes, months) of searching, we determined that it must have fallen into the vortex of forever lost objects.  You know, that place that also holds the raisin you dropped on the floor, your sunglasses, and your five year old daughter's favorite Barbie shoe.  It was gone forever, so we bought a new one.

Today, I pulled a bib out of the drawer that is right below the random utensil drawer and then couldn't get it to close.  I figured a bib or pot holder managed to fall behind it, so I pulled the entire drawer out to remove the obstruction.  Looking into the hole where the drawer resides, I found a pot holder as I suspected.  But what else do you suppose I found?  You guessed it!  A tiny little gnome, with brown pants, a green shirt, and a cone-shaped red hat was standing there, gazing right back at me, holding the head of the spatula for which we had filed a "Missing Persons" report almost two years ago.

Take this as a lesson.  Never assume something entered the vortex, because there is always the possibility it was that pesky gnome.


Obviously, I need to add cleaning under my drawers to my Everyday Cleaning Concept.