If you look for a Phillips head screwdriver in my toolbox, you might not find it.

But I know it's in there somewhere.I go to my local hardware store to buy a tool or a part that I need for a fix-it project. A week later I'll find the same tool or part that I had just bought shoved behind something in my shed. Last month I bought a bag of cable ties; later that day I found a hundred of them stuck inside a bucket next to a slop sink in my basement.When I visit my friend, I see pegboards in his garage with every tool and every screw and nail perfectly placed and labeled.I hate it when he shows off.I guess that makes me a failure when it comes to organization, or am I just a slob?When I cry out, " I can't find it!" in my house, my wife yells, "Not again!" My son ignores me, but my daughter will go on a treasure hunt, and more times than not, she locates the missing item.I often tell myself I have to get my stuff together, yet when I finish a project, I'm so happy to be done. I just throw tools, paint brushes, screws and nails anywhere and everywhere.Just the other day I found a screwdriver, rusted from many rainfalls, lying on top of the outside air conditioner box, left there last summer when I fixed a water spigot.Recently I bought an eight-pack of indoor flood lamps only to find another eight-pack of the same thing that I had shoved behind some winter clothes in the mudroom.I call my cellphone almost every week to find where I left it, but I'm not as bad as another guy who was telling me he couldn't find his cellphone until he realized he was talking to me on it.I'm so afraid of losing my keys and my wallet that I'm always feeling for them in my pockets. I'm sure that doesn't look too cool to anyone who might be watching me do this in Walmart.While I am complaining to my wife that I left my glasses next to the ATM at the bank, she sees them tucked into the top of the shirt that I'm wearing right in front of her.I have never lost a car, but if you see a guy walking in circles at a shopping mall, that could be me because I forgot where I parked it.I will make a grocery list, drive to the store, having left the list on the table. Worse yet, sometimes, I will reach into every pocket for the list, thinking I left it at home again. Then when I return, without several items I was supposed to get, I will remove my keys from my pocket and there is the list. It was in there hiding and laughing at me all along.My wife thinks I have a problem. Maybe she's right. Maybe I need to seek therapy in a self-help group. Here's how that might work out."Hello. My name is Rich. I'm a loser. I mean I am a loser, but not the way you would think. I lose things."Hi Rich, you loser," they would all reply."So what did you lose today?" asks a counselor."I don't know yet. I mean I probably lost some things, but I don't know if I did yet.""The first step in recovery is to go home and make a list of what you have lost or think you have lost and then begin to find each thing so you can cross it off your list," he says. "The second step is to place each thing somewhere where you know you can find it.""I'd have to put everything on the kitchen table; otherwise I'd forget where I put them," I'd say. "My wife wouldn't be happy about that."I would probably leave this group session wondering what if I lost the list of the things that I had lost?Now, I think I'm losing my mind.I'll just shake my head a few times.I know it's in there somewhere.Note: Calling all other losers like me. Send me your "losing things" stories to

katehep11@gmail.com. I can include them in a future column; that's if I don't lose them first. I will need only your first names and towns you live in to protect the identities of the guilty.