As spontaneous portal entry is known to occur frequently in Mostlandia, the Misplaced Items Authority (M.I.A.) is required by Mandate MIA-04 to submit a full report on any spontaneous portal entry to its parent organization, the Department of Reconciliation. Although the M.I.A. has received no contact or correspondence from the Department of Reconciliation for several years, the M.I.A. dutifully submits the following report:

PORTAL INCIDENT DESCRIPTION:

At approximately 11:55am on Thursday, 3 March, 2005, Administratrix O, the M.I.A.’s Front-End Coordinator and Go-Getter, observed that the area immediately outside of the door of the office seemed to be changing in appearance. Without delay, Administratrix O informed the three other members of the Authority that it appeared a spontaneous portal entry was occurring. Field Agent M. Warren Marlowe noted 12:01pm as the exact point of portal entry. Senior Ru”T’, compositurist of the Tangible Division straightened his tie, and insured his hair held the correct part on the side. Assistant Inquirer S took a few moments to create a more inviting space in her cubicle. The M.I.A.’s regular frosted window glass door was replaced by with a doorway portal to an unknown location.

Administratrix O immediately contacted all Mostlandian claimants for the day, and congenially rescheduled all appointments for a later date. Field Agent Marlowe was then dispatched through the portal to ascertain the exact location that the portal occurred in. The Field Agent returned at 12:10pm to inform the office that they had been relocated to the area of Conference Room A of the Gray Campus Center of Reed College of Portland, Oregon. Reed College and the surrounding area were quickly classified as the temporary jurisdiction, and at 12:16pm the first unscheduled claimant entered the Misplaced Items Authority. That claim was successfully closed at 1:27pm of the same day.

RAMIFICATIONS OF PORTAL DISRUPTANCE:

The M.I.A. normally operates on an appointment-only basis, but during periods of spontaneous portal entry, this practice is abandoned by necessity, and a walk-in basis of claimants is accepted. The M.I.A. is staffed to accept 20 appointments per day; on Thursday, 3 March, 2005, the M.I.A. processed 41 claims. The M.I.A. closed at the normal closing hour of 8pm, and then quickly adjourned to a nearby location known as the Delta Café, where the employees consumed many alcoholic beverages before returning to a Mostlandian citizen’s house, where many more alcoholic beverages were consumed.

When the office of the M.I.A. opened on Friday, 4 March, 2005, the office adopted its regular appointment-only status. The office’s antiquated but still useful SpotIt™ Portal Spectrometer indicated that the current portal to Reed Campus would close around the hour of 7pm, Sunday, 6 March, 2005. Claimants began appearing near the time of their scheduled appointments, and a good number of passers-by stopped in to wander about the office’s waiting room, reading various copies of National Geographics and eating agency-provided doughnuts. Given the circumstances of the spontaneous portal, M.I.A. operating procedures returned to relatively normal procedures: the Administratrix was inundated by many impromptu and frequently ludicrous claims; the Assistant Inquirer painstakingly accepted the heavy emotional and mental burden of her position; and the Compositurist and the Field Agent carried on regular discussions regarding the benefits and disadvantages of families while ruminating about the possibility of someday obtaining vacation time.

GENERAL PORTAL LOCALITY OBSERVATIONS:

As with any spontaneous portal entry, the M.I.A. labored under unforeseen, and less-than-ideal, circumstances.

The Administratrix was flooded with an overabundance of walk-ins, many of whom had never been familiar with the M.I.A., or had even seen the informational pamphlets that are regularly distributed through Mostlandia’s largest city, Topophilia. Reed College culture was also noted to be different than that of Mostlandia, and more than a few walk-ins exhibited obvious signs of culture shock. The Administratrix was found to be very level-headed, and offered snacks and sympathy to all that passed through the portal. Indeed, at times, the Administratrix was less than bureaucratic - even to the point of being friendly - but it should be noted that this should not be held against her during her annual review.

It was noted that the Tangibles Department was busier than normal; approximately half of the cases filed concerned tangible items, showing that the claimants of the Reed College portal possibly held closer to their intangibles than everyday Mostlandians, or were simply more absent-minded. The Compositurist also had to grapple with the shift in culture, oftentimes requiring the claimant to describe more details regarding the misplaced items than the claimant was accustomed to. This process, however, seemed to be very helpful to the Reed College claimants, as no one else had given this much attention to detail regarding the misplaced item as the Compositurist.

Anguishing under the same disorienting conditions, the Assistant Inquirer performed a more-than-admirable undertaking in helping the claimants in locating their intangible elements. The conditions of the portal in conjunction with entry into Mostlandia seemed to be very conducive to relocating misplaced feelings of love, innocence and wonder.

Although at first disoriented by the change in locality, the Field Agent was able to rapidly grasp the general geography of Reed College and its lack of nearby taverns and lounges. Interviews and interrogations soon proceeded as usual, although Reed College citizens did not appear to be familiar with the official orange suit of the agent. Many misplaced items were located during the Agent’s nightly return to Mostlandia, where they had apparently undergone significant physical transformations.

PORTAL STATISTICS AND CONCLUSIONS:

The Reed College portal was typical of Mostlandia and other portals previously visited in that the misplaced item can never be considered “lost”. It was ascertained that items, whether tangible or intangible, have places that they locate, even if they may not be obvious to the claimant or to the Authority. Items that were not successfully located, found to be taken or willingly misplaced are considered to be open or ongoing, as per the Authority’s normal operating procedure. In the Intangibles Division, it was also documented that the misplaced item resurfaced through sincere conversation and inquiry of the item in question.

As was noted previously, tangible claims were roughly equal to intangible claims. Fifteen percent of claims were found to be out of jurisdiction (although this did not restrain the Field Agent’s efforts), and fifteen percent were claims filed over two years after the initial misplacement. An overwhelming majority of the tangibles misplaced were items of clothing or accessories, usually of the overcoat variety. The majority of the intangible misplacements were split among cases of innocence, love or faith. A few cases involved items that were completely new to the Authority, including a Holy Mackerel, fifteen-foot tall alphabetical characters, and a moose-like object.

The M.I.A.’s success rates were normally high, and re-entry to this specific portal will not be discouraged, no matter how disorienting.