Damn Faeries

Casa de Crazy is lousy with faeries.

Not the Disney kind that laugh and frolic and twinkle and occasionally save our bacon from disaster - no we have mean-spirited little fuckers, trickster-faeries who hide things or steal them outright, often returning them only when we've gone halfway to insane looking for whatever we know, damn it, KNOW, was right there THREE MINUTES AGO!!!

They mostly pick on poor Someone, who isn't used to having so much house to hunt through for things he can't find where he last left them. I think they like to hear him swear ans watch him turn red, see the thunderclouds build over his head, listen to him mutter. They love to steal his lighter, his socks, and especially his tools.

We have witnesses, by the way, to our tricksters' antics. Several visitors have seen Someone open a cupboard to get something to find said something not there. A twenty-minute search ensues, after which Someone will open the same cupboard, look in the same spot, and there the something is, right up front, right where he looked before.

Once, when our friend Handy J was here, he watched Someone go through the search, then witnessed as Someone called me to ask where the item he was searching for would be - when I told him, he went and looked, and there they were. Handy J was insistent that they'd both looked in that very spot...

Of course.

Usually, if Someone finally enlists my aid, I'll either walk right to what he's looking for or be able to tell him where it is...or, it'll reappear where he knows it should be and he finds it soon after.

The trickster-faeries don't like to mess with me too much. I'm a finder-of-things. It's difficult to hide stuff from a finder-of-things. Not impossible - they've zinged me a few times - but difficult.

I've been told I should give them milk. Bah. They don't care for dairy products. They don't want baked goods. They are not traditional faeries. Offerings of whiskey, wine, or beer seem to please them a little, as well as rib bones, Quahog and scallop shells, Oreo cookies, and shiny, shiny things. We have even built them their own little shrine in the woods, loaded with the things they seem to like. Nothing keeps them entirely at bay, though.

Right now, we are trying to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time - we have, realistically, three days to finish sorting, packing, sewing, cooking, and loading. We don't have time for trickster-faeries...which is why, of course, they are more than happy to make time for us.

This morning, while sorting through camping gear, I noticed some things missing. It made sense that they weren't in their regular box - Someone took them with him last Autumn when he was helping a friend with her business, travelling to shows and vending with her. They were in a different box, a smaller, more portable box. THAT box, however, was nowhere to be found.

Both Someone and I clearly recall washing things, putting them in the box, and putting the box in the trailer for the winter...but it's not among the things we unloaded...and we looked into every. single. box. twice.

I would shrug and say "Oh, well..." but I can't - what the little fuckers stole this time is a handful of items we need for our trip but cannot afford to just replace (coffee pot, nesting pots, Coleman one-burner, and all our fuel ) and I don't have time to play their games and hunt high and low for stuff.

I am...irked...dismayed...frustrated...and irked.

I hope they return our things before we have to leave...because camping with Someone when there's no way to make coffee? Daunting doesn't begin to describe the prospect...