This morning a faculty member who recently bought his own projector came into my office simply sputtering with consternation. It seems someone borrowed his projector, but forgot to re-pack the cable with the projector -- probably putting in with their laptop or something. We walked over to my office and I took stock of the huge array of cables I have.
"How could someone be so stupid! Can you believe it?" he asked.
"Welcome to my life!" I replied with a smile. He realized with someone who has four projectors, three laptops, and more getting checked out constantly might have some appreciation of what he was talking about.
I found a cable he could use and he went off happy.
I've actually been very lucky -- I've almost always been able to track down anything that's wandered away. I've lost staplers and ethernet cables, but the costliest thing I've lost was a three-hole punch. Oh, things get packed in the wrong bags sometimes, but it actually happens fairly rarely. Still, it was funny to have someone ask me if I could believe that something like that could happen.