Pocket is once again missing knife

It’s around here somewhere.

In fact, it’s probably lost somewhere in the sofa in the family room.

The item in question is a pocketknife.

And as any guy will tell you, pocketknives have a way of sliding out of your pocket, usually when you are dozing off in the late innings of a baseball game on TV.

The first pocketknife I coveted was the Boy Scout knife that, I believe, was advertised in the pages of Boys Life.

It wasn’t so much a knife as it was a hardware store. Like Batman’s utility belt, it had something for every occasion.

As a result, it wasn’t so much a pocketknife as it was a pocket-busting knife. Scouts who possessed this clunker usually hung it from their belt rather than risk damaging their trousers.

My pockets were safe. I never owned one.

The first pocketknife I remember was a Swiss Army knife, one of the red ones. And while it had plenty of gizmos — the screwdrivers were particularly helpful — it wasn’t as bulky as the Boy Scout version.

It had an elegance and a practicality that must have made the Swiss Army proud.

Mine was regularly tucked into my jeans for years, but at some point the family dog got ahold of it and used it as a chew toy. Fortunately, the pup didn’t open the blades, but he nearly destroyed the plastic housing.

A replacement was, I think, a Christmas present. It was the same model without the dog’s teeth marks all over it.

And it was duly tucked in my jeans for several more years until I made the mistake of loaning it to a buddy.

“I’ll bring it right back,” he said. And he did. But he also managed to break off a tiny bit of the point of the largest blade. I held onto it, despite the damage, but eventually replaced it with one I bought at Eastern Mountain Sports in New Hampshire.

By then, the Swiss Army had made the fashion statement of allowing its pocketknives to be produced not just in the traditional red but in black as well.

So I got a black one, and I loved it the way guys tend to love their pocketknives. It was something I depended on, a friend I could always rely upon.

The friendship ended at Boston’s Logan Airport.

Like an idiot, I had the knife in my pocket when I got to airport security. It was so much a part of my kit and wardrobe that I forgot I had it with me.

Last I saw it, the knife had been tossed into one of those ugly gray plastic tubs that the TSA favors. I’m sure it joined a zillion other pocketknives that equally absent minded guys had lost in the same situation.

For a few years, I went knife-less. Then I spotted a Haynes Automobile promotional pocketknife from the 1920s. It was made of Stellite, an alloy developed by Elwood Haynes. It was on eBay, of course, and I was able to get it at a reasonable price, although it’s anyone’s guess what is reasonable for a Stellite Haynes knife from the 1920s.

That’s the one that’s around here somewhere.

It slipped out of my pocket at some point. I’m confident that it’s in the house. It could be in that family room sofa. It could be in an old leather chair that belonged to my father and is a favorite spot for dozing in the late innings of a game.

It could be in a sleeper sofa in my study or amid the cushions of a loveseat in the living room.

All I know for sure is that it’s not in my pocket where it belongs.