Ok.. Looks innocent enough right ?
But let me tell you the story about this
simple little screw.  First let me explain.
This is not just any screw.  It is a self
transporting, self hiding, OD green. torx
head machine screw with an attached washer.
In metric no less.  So it's not your everyday
screw !!       The story ..........................
  Three years ago I purchased a brand new
Polaris Sportsman 500 quad.  Soon after I
brought it home I felt the need to add an
aftermarket winch to the front of it for those
times when I may get in stuck on the trail, and secondly, because that's
what you do when you buy a new bike.   As with everything else in my
life, installation was not an easy bolt on application as it would have
been for the average Joe!  My particular installation required a good deal
of disassembly of the bike itself to install the mounting brackets and such.
Having spent most of my working life in the mechanical field I am very
diligent about keeping track of parts and bolts etc. during these projects.
Or so I thought ............

  At some time during the reassembly of this
bike, the infamous 'screw' climbed out of the
plastic tray and managed to hide somewhere
in the garage because after everything was
replaced and tightened, this one screw was
missing from the instrument cluster.  Now I
am the first to admit that this is not a big deal.
I have drawers full of various screws ,bolts, nuts
and washers that have escaped from other projects
that worked just fine as replacements .. but..
I was also concerned that it may try to hide in
one of my tires when I pulled into the garage next time .. not a good thing.
So I searched and searched, swept and even ran the shop vac over every
square inch to no avail.  It was gone...............
   Fast forward three years.  In an unrelated matter, a couple weeks before
Christmas  my granddaughters decided they want an aquarium.  Rather than
spending hard earned money on something I was sure to be just a passing
fancy I remembered that I had a really nice twenty gallon tank and all of the
accessories stored away in one of the kids old bedrooms.  A little spit shine
and it was good as new even after a year ands a half of storage.  Well today
my son came to pick it up.  After loading everything but the stand I opened
it up and there it was..  'the screw'.  Now I'm not sure exactly where it was
hiding the first two years, or how it migrated up the stairs and into that
particular room or into that exact stand, but I do know it was 'the screw'
There are no others like it ! 
    Of course my wife has all sorts of theories about me transporting it upstairs
in my pocket and such .. but that's impossible because I couldn't even find
it back on that infamous day .  She also suggested that it was possibly just
a different similar screw, but we all know that's not possible .. I know my
screws!   At any rate tomorrow I will reinstall it in it's rightful home.  I
do think I will add some locktight to it just in case.  After all I know for a
fact that it has legs and gypsy ways !!!