@Talyaa thanks for trying. If your camera won't focus when you move in really close there's not much more to be done. Unfortunately, JPEG artifacts are destroying the details of the mystery object, and that makes it hard to identify. What are its rough dimensions?

@MightyBigCar about 3mm at its widest point

@Talyaa Is that end to end or width of the strip (the narrow dimension). I'm guessing end-to-end.

@MightyBigCar yep end to end, sorry I wasn't clear

@Talyaa No problem - thanks for putting up with questions!

@Talyaa OK, so at first glance it looked like a ribbon connector from some the internals of some portable electronic device. But that doesn't explain why you've encountered multiples of the thing.

@Talyaa Based on your original description and the size info, I think it's a clip of some sort. It might be surgical, but that's pretty doubtful unless your or a friend recently had some minor injury that needed stitches (or equivalent) or if has a pet that was recently spayed or something like.

@Talyaa So right now I'm thinking it's a fabric clip of some sort. It might have come off a bit of clothing, or a cloth or mesh wrapper around something from the grocery store. Other candidates are speaker covers, car interior fabrics (though not seat covers, carpets, or headliners), or the lightweight fabric under a chair.

@Talyaa Sorry for the tootstorm - your measurement toot caught me with just enough #beer in me to go all nerdily verbose and analytical.

@MightyBigCar oh I really appreciate all your analytical suggestions! I thought it was some sort of internal Electronic Thingie™, but from what? I tend to have either my phone or laptop with me most of the time, and did when I noticed the thingies, but three identical ones? On different days? I'm stumped. They look intentionally crafted, otherwise I too would have thought they were from a fabric mesh. I'm gonna have to chalk it up to witchcraft. Or space aliens.

@Talyaa https://octodon.social/media/VN9ERAukXpSJCz65CwI so I found a weird thing candidate on my keyboard, and shuffled it into the desk. It's part of a sofa can pull tab (my spouse collects the pull tabs for charity, so I pull off a lot of them).

@MightyBigCar ah no, my mystery thing is way smaller than that - about 1/8 inch at its widest part. Thanks though! And props to your spouse for the charity thing!