Lost and Found

Murray State lost Tennessee State? What happened? How could an entire university go missing? No tracking device? No implanted microchip? This isn’t like misplacing gloves or sunglasses; Tennessee State is valuable. We’ve got to find it. I’ll initiate the search by putting up LOST UNIVERSITY posters and offering a substantial reward.

Relax, readers. Tennessee State isn’t missing. (The school is in Nashville.) What is missing is the to that precedes it. I doubt it can be found. I’ll look for it and get back to you.

[Owen checks couch cushions, coat pockets, lost-and-found bins, dictionary entries between TNT and toad, and, with some assistance from James Cameron, the depths of the Mariana Trench. No luck. His hope wanes.]

Eureka! My frantic search for to lasted all of one day. (It turned out to be more difficult than the time I found my mom’s glasses on top of her head but easier than the time I helped my brother look for his car keys on a beach in the wee hours of the morning. True stories.) In the following day’s paper, I saw this: 

I spotted to, wandering aimlessly, not far from Memphis. The lost to had been found. It hadn’t even crossed state lines.

I can cross “Find ‘to’” off my to-do list. Now, if I could only find that to-do list…