I am a pack rat of tiny things.

A plastic ring from a friend’s wedding, a tiny ceramic frog, dice, every bead that ever fell from a necklace, old buttons, a tiny alien… and a blue marble.

My marble is just one of many I had as a kid. It was not the biggest, nor the smallest. It wasn’t the one with the iridescent swirls or the one that looked like a globe. My marble is bright, light blue and shot through with tiny bubbles. If you hold my marble up to the light it looks as though the makers trapped a part of the sky, or perhaps a tropical sea, within it. Long ago, in high school, I put my marble in a yellow tin covered with sheep. I nestled it in a sea of paper clips, safe and hidden. As the yellow tin, the paper clips and my marble traveled with me over the years it was been joined by a pack of safety pins, a soda tab, part of a sea monster, a teeny dragonfly, a goggle clip and other tiny treasures.

I am a tiny pack rat.

Today I wanted to photograph my marble. My bright, blue, bubbly marble.

My marble was gone.

My children are not only tiny pack rats themselves, they are thieves.

A search of drawers, toy boxes and forgotten corners turned up six other marbles.

None of them were my marble.

My marble was going to be my contribution to this weeks Mundane Monday Challenge, but the green one will have to do.