Where did the pick go?

[Jim Rowland]

Today,I was noodling on my favorite mando when the doorbell rang. I went to answer and told the guy I didn't need any,and conversed briefly. When I came back,my pick was...gone. I looked on the fingerboard,on the couch,on the floor. I retraced my steps to the door,checked the stoop,got a flashlight and inspected the hallway..nothing.
Finally,I sought serious help. I asked the wife. She said,"What's that hanging from your lip?"I have no memory of sticking it in my mouth and didn't feel a thing. Am I going mad??
Jim

[glauber]

Yes.

[Keith Miller]

picks have a life of their own, no matter what trousers i am wearing they appear in the pockets when taking out small change, BUT... try and find one for playing...all gone http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[sprucetop1]

Haven't mislaid my favourite mandolin pick (yet), but I found my favourite (and current) thumbpick (for guitar and bjo.) behind the cooker when I moved into my apartment in Hamilton, Ontario in Sept. 1969. 36 years on and 4000 miles from Hamilton, and still using it every day: is this a record ?......... John

[AlanN]

Took apart the clothes dryer once and found a shell pick http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[sunburst]

We were jamming in a rather eccentric friends living room. He had "junk" everywhere, antiques, ya know. Oriental rug on the floor, piano next to the wall, lots of places for a pick to hide.
The guitar player dropped his TS pick, and started to look on the floor for it. When the tune ended, the rest of us started to look for it too. We got strong lights and searched the surface of the rug, looked under the edge of the rug all around, moved the piano out from the wall and looked under it, took up the rug and looked under it, looked in everyones pockets, pant cuffs, shoes, inside the guitar, everywhere.
No pick.

About a week later, the guitar player who dropped the pick took off his shoes at home, and the pick fell out from under the insole in his shoe.

[flairbzzt]

I think they go to the same black hole single socks in the laundry do.

[Tom C]

I finally found out where all those single sneakers come from that appear along the road.

[mandopete]

Yeah, where?

[angrymandolinist]

Someone left a pick at a Sunoco a few days ago. It's mine now.

[John Flynn]

Mike Compton tells the story that Bill Monroe once showed up to give a workshop and didn't have a pick. He had too much pride to ask a participant for one, so he told the guy who was driving him to find him a pick. That guy found one between the seat cushions in his car. When a workshop participant asked Bill what kind of picks he uses, he held up that found pick and said "I use these!"

I dropped one and after giving up looking for it, found it in the cuff of my pants weeks later.

[250sc]

I keep mine under the strings of the instrument and haven't lost one in years but now that I said that I figure it will be gone within a week. ;-)

[Jim Yates]

Not exactly a pick, but...I have weak nails and since I play clawhammer banjo, i get acrylic nails on the index and middle fingers of my right hand. They only become a problem when they grow out a bit. Once I was playing the mandolin at a weekly Celtic session at a Peterborough, Ont. watering hole when my middle fingernail caught on the strings and flew off. It hit Reverend Ken, the host of the session between the eyes. When the tune was done he said,"Hey, someone threw something at me during that last tune." I didn't tell him what it was and he spent the rest of the session wondering about it.

A lot of non-musician friends of mine don't seem to realize that picks are three for a buck. I've left a pick at a bed & breakfast place and when I went back the next year the host said,"I bet you've been wondering where this went." Actually, I never even missed it.
My Aunt Vera actually spent more on postage to send me a pick that I'd left on her coffee table than the pick was worth. (Of course, I wouldn't tell her that.)

[mandodebbie]

I work at an ice cream parlour and every once in a while a teen rummaging through his/her (umm.. I can't tell the boys from the girls these days) small change drops a pick on the counter. This is an opportunity to discuss what instrument they play (and for me to boast about my Bluegrass mando hobby!) Most of them play electric guitar of some kind, and others just keep the picks as a good luck token. So, that's where our picks go!!

[Roachcoach]

I always get a chuckle when I'm walking across the floor in the morning and a pick falls off my body that I'd been sleeping on all night. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleepy.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[BlueMountain]

"A lot of non-musician friends of mine don't seem to realize that picks are three for a buck."
Ever been bemused (not A-mused, but B-mused) by those ads for old mandolins on eBay that don't say anything about the tone or action but say "Includes pick!" or mention that "one string is missing"? Sometimes I want to throttle the people, but sometimes it's a place to get a good deal.

[TommyK]

Haven't mislaid my favourite mandolin pick (yet), but I found my favourite (and current) thumbpick (for guitar and bjo.) behind the cooker when I moved into my apartment in Hamilton, Ontario in Sept. 1969. #36 years on and 4000 miles from Hamilton, and still using it every day: is this a record ?......... John
Don't know if'n it's a record, but you can not be human http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[TommyK]

I always get a chuckle when I'm walking across the floor in the morning and a pick falls off my body that I'd been sleeping on all night. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleepy.gif #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Roachcoach,
Thanks for bringing that up. I just checked a body cavity and found 2 picks and 13cents. THANKS! The cavity?... my belly button http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif bwaahahaha!

I never buy those expensive Tortouse shell picks. at $20 - $30 a pop, I'd go broke replacing them. I'd keep them in the strings, but I'd then loose my instrument.
The only tortouse shell picks I use are those from fluorescent green tortouses.

[Jack_Daniels]

I finally found out where all those single sneakers come from that appear along the road.
Around here, people tie two single shoes together and throw them over the telephone wires or over tree branches.

Drive by to local university around April and there are shoes hanging everywhere.

Jason

[biscuit]

I lost my TS pick one time I looked everywhere for a week. Guess where I found it. In my mandolin case! What a place to keep a pick. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleepy.gif

[mando_pete]

We had something rattling around in our garbage disposal one time and after taking it apart I found ... My missing 1.26mm Clayton Eagle.

-- pete

[handpicked]

One of my kids found a beat up and dirty Golden Gate pick of mine in the dirt out by the swingset in the back yard. It had been lost for several months....still don't know how it got out there...quite amazing that it was ever found at all...

[Yonkle]

My Basset Hound loves picks, I find them in the yard while mowing. Lucky she has not got any expensive ones yet. So I bagged them up and put them away where she can't get them,....somehow she got them, the whole bag about 40 picks where on the floor where my mandolins are. I ran outside to see if she got any of my favorites, after scouring the yard, I only found (1) YES, true story, out of the (40) picks to choose from, she grabbed only one and it was...... a "Dawg" pick!