Where Do They Go

I spend many of my evenings watching TV with my husband and stitching.  I either do some hand piecing, hand applique, hand quilting, knitting or, occasionally, cross stitch or other embroidery.  I like to keep my hands busy.  It makes me feel (perhaps delusionally) like I'm being productive while being a couch slug.

While hand piecing or doing applique, I use short applique pins.  And I usually use size 11 betweens for quilting.  I do have occasions where I drop one of those short pins while trying to move it to or from the fabric and its storage box.  And, on occasion, while starting the next needle-full of quilting stitches, the needle will launch itself off the thread and land somewhere.  I rarely find these pins and needles.  My question is - Where Do They Go?

I have turned that recliner on its back, upside down, and sideways in the fruitless search for the missing sharp object.  I have run my hands over the arms, the seat, the backs, the surrounding carpet, between the cushions and have never had so much as a prick form the apparently vanished metal sliver.  I have tried sort of bouncing the front of the chair up and down to try to dislodge any missing pins into falling to the floor below.  I've even resorted to a rare earth magnet to try to coax the missing sharp object out of it's hiding place.   ...  All to no avail.

So my question stands - Where Do They Go???

I've pondered this for quite some time and I think this is one of those un-answerable questions like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" or "Why is it if I eat a pound of fudge that I gain 5 pounds?" .  The answer to all is "We can never know".