Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Where would you hide the paper clip?

177 replies

User4152790 · 05/10/2020 12:30

You have five minutes to hide a paper clip in your home. A detective then has 24 hours to look for it. If he finds it, he gets £10,000. If he fails to find it, you get £10,000.

Where are you going to hide the paperclip?

OP posts:
SisyphusAndTheRockOfUntidiness · 05/10/2020 14:44

I'd sellotape it onto the back of a radiator. Possibly into the gap in the middle. Or, on the back of my fridge freezer where the wires etc are visible.

Or, in the soil under the cactus. It's very spiky.

mumwon · 05/10/2020 14:49

man's view (dh!)
bribe detective & get half each
(really dh!!! that's cheating! Grin)

Fromage · 05/10/2020 15:08

I notice this detective is a man.

So I would put it on or in something of his, and place it in plain sight because men can never fucking find what's right in bastarding front of them. Grin

If this detective is my ex, for instance, I would just need to find the domestic equivalent of the g-spot. Which might be the dishwasher.

If this detective is a teenager, then it can go in the salad drawer, or perhaps the cupboard with the pasta in it, because there's never any food in this house.

If my ex FIL is the detective, it would go in the kitchen, or as he thought of it "the other side of the magical door, through which I am brought cups of tea and roast dinners."

Today's sexist rant was brought to you by Lighten The Fuck Up, for anyone who is reading this in a more serious mood than it was intended for.

SisyphusAndTheRockOfUntidiness · 05/10/2020 15:22

Haha... I mentioned this thread to DH earlier. He suggested that the paperclip should go in DD's room. And that she should be told to look after it. It would never be found again. Really, that child seems to have magical powers.

mumwon · 05/10/2020 15:32

& whilst detective is looking we will give him a list of things previously lost

Quandaries · 05/10/2020 15:34

In the compartment of my AppleTV remote that holds the battery.

I can never find my AppleTV remote.

Quandaries · 05/10/2020 15:35

Oooh, another thought.

Can I flatten out the paper clip so it’s just a length of wire?

If so, I’d do that and thread it into the middle of one of the strings between the slats on the Venetian blinds in my sunroom.

SleepingStandingUp · 05/10/2020 15:37

In a 💩 nappy in the nappy bin

Original poster
User4152790 · 05/10/2020 15:59

These suggestions are amazing Grin

For those who wanted rules:

  • The detective isn’t allowed a metal detector
  • He is allowed to take things apart (e.g. dismantle your microwave) but he’s not allowed to destroy things (e.g. tear cushions apart)
  • You aren’t allowed to be in the house when he searches
  • the paper clip is in some way identifiable, so he knows when he has the correct one
  • and remember, you only have 5 minutes in which to hide it!

I agree this would make an excellent channel 4 programme!

OP posts:
Fromage · 05/10/2020 16:40

Does he, within his 24 hours, have to reassemble the things he's dismantled?

IdkickJilliansass · 05/10/2020 16:46

In a tube of toothpaste

DeliciouslyFemale · 05/10/2020 17:55

I bet he has metal detector hidden somewhere. That’s why you have to be out of the house, either that or hidden camera. 😉

SnakesandKnives · 05/10/2020 20:31

If you can reshape it, id add it to the wire on the reinforced wicker hamper in my 18 foot pythons tank. I wouldn’t introduce them.

piefacedClique · 05/10/2020 20:34

Poke into a sausage and bake into a sausage roll

BojoKilledMyMojo · 05/10/2020 20:37

I'd just set it into a wax melt.

Smallsteps88 · 05/10/2020 20:38

In the battery compartment of the door bell.

Or under the little flap of carpet that comes loose by my bedroom door.

Or I’d melt a candle and then hide it inside it before it re hardens.

Smallsteps88 · 05/10/2020 20:38

@BojoKilledMyMojo

I'd just set it into a wax melt.
Ha! Great minds.
mangomama91 · 05/10/2020 20:40

But if he looks through the paper clips does he get more than one chance to find the right one?

TheFormerPorpentinaScamander · 05/10/2020 20:43

I was going to say in a face mask as a nose wire or melt a candle and set it in there. But they've already been suggested.
So...
Straighten it and make wrap it onto a spring bit on a clothes peg.

Or straighten it, unwrap some of my jewellery making wire, put the paperclip on the reel and roll the wire back round it.

Percypiglets · 05/10/2020 20:48

In the fish tank gravel

HappyDinosaur · 05/10/2020 20:50

Inside a tube of dried penne, the filter of the tumble dryer, or somewhere really simple but seemingly too obvious(that I can't think of right now!).

sbhydrogen · 05/10/2020 20:52

Drop it down the sink so it sits in the U-bend

Craiglang · 05/10/2020 20:57

Well that's a waste of my evening, arguing with DH about where to hide a paperclip. His best idea was inside an egg, this was his best effort when asked to prove it would work and be undetectable. (Spoiler alert - it didn't and wasn't.)

Where would you hide the paper clip?
DeliciouslyFemale · 05/10/2020 20:58

I’ve just realised that Mumsnetters would run rings around the drug squad. 🤣

loubieloo4 · 05/10/2020 20:59

Taped on the inside of one of dds guitars and a random extra one so it rattles

Swipe left for the next trending thread