Generally I have had good luck finding mislaid items of all types except SD cards. For whatever reason those disappear between the card slot on my PC and the card slot in the camera. I have no explanation how. Lens caps go in the bag when the camera is being used and cameras go in the bag when not being used, so if a cap is missing it is almost always in the bag.
The other things I’ve permanently lost I surmise fell into the trash receptacle next to my reading chair. What’s really remarkable is when lost items reappear of their own accord:
I lost a pair of prescription sunglasses and was completely mystified where I could have lost them. They had been in the breast pocket of my suit coat when I switched them for regular glasses after lunch and weren’t in my office or anywhere around my house. I replaced them at considerable expense. The following spring
a visitor saw them sitting on the corner of my front porch. They were spottless. I suppose coming in the house after work I had unconsciously bent over to pull a weed and never thought about it, but normally I’d be wearing the sunglasses outdoors with the regular glasses in the coat pocket, and how would they be spotless after a winter on the corner of the front porch? Maybe one of the landscapers found them and put them there. Or maybe the pixies found them and left them on the porch.
I’ve lost the little screw in cap to my DA40/2.8 several times and backtracked to find it as long as three days later. When I switched to HD from SMC I changed to silver to match my KP. The silver is easier to find
The remarkable thing is seeing it on the ground before I know it is missing, so was it ever really lost? Pixies?
I once misplaced the flash shoe cover to my brand new K-3 - I mean Christmas Day new - and it stayed lost for a couple years. I’m just anal enough that it bothered me every time I used my K-3. One day in the center of the top of my chest of drawers there it sat. No explanation for how it got there. Pixies?