Giant Sucking Noise

About a year and a half ago, I bought a pair of Clover wooden 10 1/2 DPNs. Before this, I was firmly on the cheap metal needle bandwagon and I only got the Clovers because I had some chunky yarn that I wanted to knit up NOW (or rather, THEN) and I couldn't find metal ones that size. And they were awesome. They were everything people say about wooden needles: warm in my hands, and the knitting flew.

The only problem? Somewhere in my vicinity there is a giant black hole that only eats wooden 10 1/2 DPNs. My sock yarn that's been sitting for two years? Still there, begging to be knit (but that's a different problem). My collection of crochet hooks? All there, even the teeny thread crochet ones. My gauges and tape measures and seam rippers? All present and accounted for. The size 00 needles? A little bent, but otherwise intact. My nice wooden 10 1/2 DPNs? Gone gone gone.

Seriously. I've bought three more packages of those suckers, plus made some out of dowels I found in the garage once when I was feeling particularly desperate. Probably 30 needles. I am currently in possesion of 3 of them, and oneof them has been chewed on, presumably by one of Mom's pets.

Grah.