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I own a magic CD and I’ve lost it a few times, but it always finds its way back to me.

In the 15 years since I bought it, I must have lost it a dozen times. It’s one of those albums you love the first time you hear it, and it remains a favorite forever. This one happens to be the debut album by the Brand New Heavies, although it doesn’t really matter what band it is. Everyone has a favorite old CD like this.

But every couple of years, I lose track of it. Either after a weekend trip to New Orleans, a few days at the beach or a friend’s all-night party, eventually this CD gives me the slip.

The first time it happened, I got aggravated. I searched, pressed friends on whether they’d seen it and griped about it. For weeks afterward, I absently looked under sofa cushions and inside other CD jewel cases, but to no avail. Weeks and months passed, and I forgot about the disc. Then, out of the blue, it showed up in a friend’s car.

Another time, I found it again in another CD jewel case. And then behind the stereo.

It’s too bad NASA didn’t have magic CDs like this one to record the little goings-on of the late 1960s because that agency could use a little magic help. Turns out the folks at NASA misplaced the original recording of Neil Armstrong’s first words from the Moon: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Think of it: NASA lost the tape. It’s gone.

All of human history, then we, the United States, land on the moon.

And we lose the tape.

“Jenkins?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Where’s the giant-leap-for-mankind tape?”

“Uhhhh. I’m not sure, boss. Don’t you have it?”

“Doh! No I don’t have it!”

And so on.

It boggles the mind to think an agency so hell-bent on procedures would lose the tape of the single most astonishing accomplishment since…since…I’m going to say the invention of the Reese’s Cup.

And even if they do find the tape one day, the loss will go down as the all-time blunder in lost stuff-ology.

Of course, now I don’t have to feel so badly about losing my favorite old CD—or any other worldly possession for that matter. If I ever lose the videotape of our child’s first bike ride, or some other treasured piece from the family archive, I’ve got a good defense.

“Honey, cut me some slack—even NASA lost the giant-leap-for-mankind tape.”