I bought some specialty hinges yesterday, but somewhere along the way I dropped one package. Last night it snowed.

For reproduction pieces I have to send away for specialty items such as hinges, knobs and the like. This time it was a particular type of fairly expensive solid-brass hinges, which I unexpected found locally while shopping for other supplies. They had two pair in the bin, exactly what I needed, so I snapped up both packages and tossed my loot in the car. Then I quickly finished some other errands, attempting to beat a snowstorm headed our way. (Had to get that all-important bread and milk, after all.)

Woke up this morning to 8" or 9" of snow and, glad for my foresight the previous day, headed out to the shop – and found that my bag of supplies was torn at the bottom. A quick search verified that everything was in the bag, except one package of hinges.

It’s always best where I live to wait till after the plows have come to shovel, so the obvious first step was to check the car. No luck. Heading back to the store for another pair was out: The roads were awful and, more importantly, I’d bought the last two pair. I did call them, though, and they hadn’t seen the package I dropped. Of course, ordering another pair would take a week.

So I started shoveling.

I suppose I may have shoveled that package of hinges right up – probably did, in fact – and it’s now lodged somewhere in the middle of one of the piles of snow by the driveway. The weather forecast says we won’t get sufficient warmth here for those piles to melt for more than a week, probably longer. Plus more snow is on the way. I suppose I’ll find those hinges sometime next month once the piles are gone. In the meantime, looks like I’ll be sending away for those hinges.

Which I should have done last week in the first place.

A.J.