Whimsy

I think I've figured it out.

Beads are often a part of the jewelry I make. These days they tend to be 3mm or 4mm beads, fairly small. They are a variety of metals, stones, crystal, and just lately I've discovered seed beads. Once I learned, since the latter aren't sold in mm sizes, that  15/1 translates to impossibly small to work with, and 6/0 means workable with some work - appropriate that, what? - I have been able to add those to my supply and incorporate them into my design plans.

Colors and combinations are all over the place. Solid opaques (ho hum), transparent single colors, iridescent coated colors with silver cores for brightness, all have one thing in common around here. All of them can hide successfully on the multi-color rug in front of the TV where I do most of my work. I know this because all varieties are successful at slipping out of my fingers or off the surface they are poured out onto before they get picked up.

I have moved furniture, changed lighting so sparkles and shadows emerge differently from the background. I have picked up pieces of lint, blanket fuzz, cellophane, foil bits, crumbs, and whatever else might be scattered over that rug. I have tried to pick up pieces of the pattern of the rug itself. With all that, each night I go to bed secure in the illusion that all spilled beads have been picked back up and put away.

Nearly every morning, I return to my chair, and at some point my movements reveal the location of yet another bead (or more) that I can swear wasn't there last night. Surely even if I hadn't seen it I would have stepped on it while traveling barefoot on my many treks to the kitchen, bathroom, garbage can, or bedroom. Or just chasing those beads I can locate.

But no.

I've given that recurring puzzle some thought. One explanation suggests itself.

Cockroaches.

I know a certain number of them inhabit the house. We never see them during the 9 months we live here. However, every fall when we return, one will be upside down on the floor somewhere. Experience shows me this does not guarantee it will be dead, though prolonged inversion does produce death. Once flipped back, any remaining bit of life allows it to scurry away unless one had first covered it with a tissue and given it a hearty scrunch. Followed of course by a flush.

We also return to a certain amount of roach trails, aka dried shit squirts, along window ledges and other locations somewhat less palatable. Since they get washed away, and never reappear until the following fall, we could almost delude ourselves that our presence inspires them to flee outside until we leave again. I just don't believe it. Lack of evidence is not evidence.

Now we may have some proof they haven't gone. Having seen the requisite one per year, I can attest that they are large enough down here to be responsible for solving the bead mystery. I will forever imagine that once the lights go off, out they come for a rollicking game of bead soccer or some such entertainment. They emerge with whatever beads got overlooked, but returning humans give so little warning that beads are dropped in their scurry to hide.

I just haven't figured out what they use for their goals yet.