Last Place You Look

Helena: She lost her teeth yesterday. I said "If Mum were here, she'd find them. She's amazing at finding things." She said "If your Mum could find them, she must be a miracle worker."
Joanne: They'll be staring her in the face. They always are.

Helena: They were in the fridge.

—Mirror Mask

If someone loses an object, it will always be found in the last place they look. Fridge Logic maintains that this is because once they find it, they aren't looking for it anymore, thus it's always in the last place they look. What they really mean is that it's the last place they would look.

The main example of this is when a character loses their glasses. They will always, inevitably, have them on their head. Works with keys, books, and pretty much anything you can hold in your hand.

May frequently involve being Hidden in Plain Sight. The character may also have Failed a Spot Check. As many folks can attest, this is Truth in Television.

Examples of Last Place You Look include:

Anime & Manga

In the Police Procedural parody chibi episode of The Prince of Tennis, Inui misplaces his glasses and just about everybody gets hauled into the "office" as a potential thief... until he remembers that he'd simply forgotten to put them back on when he took them off to wash his face.
In one chapter of Keroro Gunsou, Momoka falls out of a tree and lands on Chiruyo while both are trying to take pictures of Fuyuki. Chiruyo loses her glasses, and fruitlessly looks for them, apparently unaware that she's still wearing them and they've just been pushed up onto her forehead.

Film

The quote comes from Mirror Mask, where Helena's mother is a good finder of things hidden. Helena eventually remembers what her mother told her to find the MirrorMask which is inside a mirror.

Literature

The Polish poem for children Pan Hilary is about this.

Live Action TV

Spaced used the glasses variation in the second episode with Daisy.
- Subverted, though: She was putting off doing some work, in various ways.
From Emmit Otter's Jugband Christmas:

Ma Otter: Now, where'd I put that tea pot? [searches around whilst carrying said tea pot in her hand]

Fawlty Towers. The problem is further exacerbated because the woman is hard of hearing, and doesn't have her hearing aid turned on "because it runs the batteries down." Basil tries to convince her to turn it on, but she can't hear him, so he tries to write down the words "turn it on," but then remembers that she can't read without her reading glasses, which, as per the trope, are on her head.
On Just Shoot Me, Dennis and Elliot make bets on how long it takes Jack to discover that his glasses are on his head.
Brought up in 30 Rock episode "", Kenneth loses a pair of Jack's pants and is looking for them.

Kenneth: And I tried looking in the last place you'd ever expect. And NO, Mr. Donaghy's pants are NOT in the ladies' room of that laser tag place on Twelfth Avenue.

Bernard in Black Books is about to go on holiday, naturally he doesn't remember where he put it other than "It's in the house!". He put it somewhere safe so he spends 5 hours putting everything off the walls before walking over to his desk and saying I remember i put it over here but no, I can't find it. Cue "Did you check your desk Bernard?, Yes of cour-oh here it is."
This line is said in an episode of Two and A Half Men when the son Jake loses his Nintendo DS. He spends the entire episode looking for it and finally finds it on his front lawn when he is about to take a whiz.

Newspaper Comics

In comic strip Zits, Jeremy's mom has done this with her car keys on occasion.

Stand Up Comedy

Jeff Foxworthy once addressed the Fridge Logic side of this:

"Did you find your wallet?"
"Yes, it was in the last place I looked."
"Well, I certainly hope so!"

Video Games

In the Interactive Fiction game Shade, there are several possible places your tickets can be (in your coat, in your luggage, among the papers on your desk). The game makes sure that whichever order you search in, they're always in the Last Place You Look.

Web Animation

In Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5, Homestar says that he continues looking even after he's found what he's looking for, "just to make sure".

Western Animation

On Two Stupid Dogs, Little Dog lost a bone by putting it on his head (and spent an entire episode searching the entire world and space for it).
Grandpa from The Boondocks does this immediately after delivering a "I've been around a long time, so don't think you can ever pull one over on me kid. I'm too smart for you" talk.
In one episode of Dora the Explorer, Dora and group must travel to the Big Red Chicken's party to help him find his cake... which was balanced on his head. At least the camera angles concealed this fact.

Real Life

Very much Truth in Television, too.
Pretty much always, since finding means you stop looking, so where you've found it is the last place you looked.
- Rarely do people actually mean "the last place they looked before they found it". Rather, they mean that they found it in the last place it could have been; imagine that you lost something important and narrowed it down to 10 possible spots. People say this when it turns out to be in the 10th and last spot they checked, not when they find it in the 2nd spot.