My interpretation of it wasn’t meaningless.

Like my search for object algorithm goes like:

1. First look where I expect it to be. It’s not really missing at this point.
2. Then I think of whether I can remember putting it somewhere different and check there. If it doesn’t turn up at this point, I now consider it missing.
3. At this point, I’ll make a mental list of all of the places it makes sense to be and search down that list.
4. If it’s still not found, then I’ll start just looking everywhere until either I find it, get distracted by something else, or give up on finding it.

I always thought of “it’s in the last place you look” in terms of the list in #3. You think of 5 places it might be, and whatever the order you check them in, it will be in the 5th location you check.

Your interpretation sounds more like it’s in terms of #4. Or maybe #3 but checking each place as you think of it instead of building up a backlog.