So I was working on a P Bass (I got carried away on a whim) - routed it out for a Jazz bass Pickup at the bridge, and after a week of messing around having finally changed out the tone pot for the 10th time and added the last slug resistor and almost got a balance between the pickups (apparently you never do) and having plugged up the totally worn out pickguard screw holes, I closed it all up.
Could I find that little tone knob? Vanished without a trace. Swept the floor even under the bench (shock horror, it's a sacrosanct space where wives and mortals cannot go) after a couple of hours of searching, the workshop has never looked so tidy, but to absolutely no avail. I was mortified. I had broken the cardinal rule of the workshop, that all parts that come off go into the little plastic pot with the magnet in the bottom so the tiny tiny screws don't go walkies.
In utter desperation thinking i couldn't be that dumb, after giving the bass a good shake - no rattles, so it couldn't possibly be in there, I took the stings off and undid my ever so tight final fixing pickguard screws that would never ever ever be undone again (he said), and there it was, nestled deep down in the control cavity, hiding from me
Never did find the tape measure tho................