Finding lost objects a true calling

My brother is on the telephone, mad as heck.

He's lost the remote to his television.

I sympathize.

I've been in the same position, where you think you're going to be trapped on the same channel forever. Sure, "That 70s Show" might be on now, but ultimately, it's going to go off and cut to something awful, like some inane reality programming I could care less about.

That or - gasp! - I might have to actually change the channel by hand. Which would be a fate rivaling death as least desirable.

He's looked everywhere, all the usual places - the refrigerator, in his underwear drawer, the garbage, under the bed. He's in a dorm room, so it's not like there are many hiding places a remote control could actually go undetected for so long.

The thought occurs to me: "Call it."

A pause long enough to make me suspect our connection has been broken. "Beg pardon?"

The very idea of it actually working makes me giddy: "Call your remote control," I tell him between giggles.

He wants to mock me, I'm sure, but at the same time, I'm his older brother, so there could come the day he needs me to make a difficult decision or borrow money, so he doesn't want to make his complete and utter rejection of this ridiculous suggestion too evident.

Finally, defeated, he utters a half-hearted, "Here, remote," dripping with scorn.

"That's not going to work," I scoff. "How will it hear you?"

So he raises the volume a little, so as to be better heard above the sounds of the commercial he cannot mute: "Here, remote! Here, remote!"

Then he insists, "It's totally a coincidence!" as he discovers the missing instrument, as vital as his heart or lungs, tangled between his bed sheets.

I scoff at this assertion.

I could try to dazzle you with a lengthy explanation of how giving voice to one's search for a missing item actually sends microscopic signals across time and space, which alerts the lost treasure and causes it to materialize in the nearest convenient space, typically somewhere one has already looked nine times for it beforehand.

But it would be a lie.

I don't pretend to know quite how the ancient art of calling lost inanimate objects works, but I do know that it does.

I've used this technique myself many a time since that fateful day I learned it worked, including on my own remote, and several times I've wandered a parking lot, calling "Car! Car!"

The strange looks I received from innocent bystanders turned to looks of astonishment as my pleas changed to cries of delight: "Oh, there you are!" and man and vehicle were happily reunited.

If this new method catches on, I predict many more happy scenes between people and their things long thought forever lost.