Where Are My Keys?!?!

I had another blog written for today, but I interrupt your regularly scheduled post with this news bulletin: I AM HAVING A CRAPPY DAY!

Actually, it has improved a little thanks to my knight in shining armor husband.

Naturally, I need to tell you about it.

I woke up early this morning because my parents are visiting this weekend and I wanted to pick up a little bit as they will be there before we arrive home from work. They were supposed to visit last weekend, but cancelled due to winter weather.

So I put fresh sheets on the guest room bed, picked up my shoes off the dining room floor and put them away and cleaned kitty litter, toilets and sinks. I folded throws and draped them over couches and put things away. You know…the usual “stuff” you do when company is coming to make it look like you don’t actually live in your home.

Then I brewed my morning coffee and put it in a to-go container and set it on the counter along with my lunch bag, purse and book and then headed toward the stairs with the intention of getting dressed so I could leave for work. Only I heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen, so I had to go back and investigate what disaster I’d be forced to clean up.

My purse, which had apparently been balanced precariously on the counter atop the book and lunch bag, had fallen off the counter and onto the floor where half the contents spilled out and rolled into every far reaching corner in the place.

Sighing, I bent down and retrieved the junk on the floor and tossed it back in my purse. I figured I would organize it again during my semi-annual purse-cleaning day, which isn’t scheduled for another month or so.

So no major biggie.

I went upstairs, got ready for work, then came back downstairs, put on my coat, blew kisses to the kitties and then grabbed purse, lunch bag, coffee cup and book and headed out to my car.

It was then that the search for my car keys began.

They weren’t in my pockets. They weren’t in my purse. They weren’t in the ignition. I even searched my lunch bag thinking it had been a long week and I’m a little sleep-deprived, so who knows what weird thing I could’ve done with the keys. But, no luck.

I searched the floor and, while I didn’t find my keys, I discovered that the floor of my car is REALLY dirty. Not that that helped the situation.

So I headed back inside and looked on the dining room table where the keys usually end up…except that I’d cleared off the table earlier. So they weren’t there. I looked on the floor. I headed back to the kitchen to look again on the floor since my purse had fallen over in that location.

But they’re a big ol’ set of keys and I couldn’t imagine that I’d overlooked them when I picked up the junk from my purse that had fallen out. I hadn’t.

I even walked upstairs and looked through the shoes that I’d put away thinking that possibly the kittens had knocked the keys off the table and they’d landed in a shoe.

Nuthin’.

After about 15 minutes of ever-more-frantic searching, I had to call my boss to tell him I couldn’t find my keys. There was no possible way I could make it to work on time by this point unless I developed the sudden ability to fly. Apparently I sounded slightly stressed (yeah and I’m slightly downplaying it by using the word “slightly”!). I may have even said a bad word or two, but he’s the king of bad words, so it didn’t faze the man. He just suggested I take a deep breath, look again a little more slowly and carefully and get to work when I was able

After another 10 minutes of searching, tears of frustration might have even been involved. I mean…COME ON! I’d driven the car home the night before so they had to be there somewhere!

I searched couch cushions. I moved all the chairs away from the dining room table and crawled on the floor underneath the table in case they were somehow wedged behind a table leg. I went upstairs and searched both bedrooms even though I never bring my keys upstairs.

Somewhere in there the frantic texts to my husband began. “I can’t find my keys! You don’t have them, do you??!” And after a few more minutes of searching: “I need you to come home and bring my spare key so I can get to work!”

And, just in case he didn’t read those texts immediately after it was safe to look at his phone, I called and left a voicemail. It was not, as you might imagine, one of those light and breezy “Hi honey!” kind of voicemail messages.

While waiting for Vince to call me back, I once again returned to my car to check one more time. The lunch bag holding the plastic container with remnants of yesterday’s salad was still on the passenger seat because we’d gone out immediately after work the night before, so I brought it inside so I could rinse the container and put it in the dishwasher.

And then I started to run the garbage disposal.

And then I found my keys.

Oh yes. They’d somehow gymnastically flipped to the left and landed fully inside the garbage disposal while my purse upended the other way onto the floor.

But now they were stuck inside the garbage disposal. Despite repeated attempts, which resulted in a very sore hand, I couldn’t manage to free up the one key that was stuck. It was Vince’s spare car key but that’s probably not of any significance other than I knew that at least the key to my car was most likely undamaged.

Here’s where my knight in shining armor comes in. Vince called and said, “You can’t find your keys?” And I said, “Oh…I found them…but now they’re stuck inside the garbage disposal.”

His response? “Am I allowed to snicker during this conversation?”

My reply? “Uhhh…not if you value your life!”

Yeah, I hadn’t yet developed a sense of humor about my morning. Probably I’m still workin’ on that.

Anyway, Vince came home, hauled out the ol’ toolbox, picked up an Allen wrench, and within two point three seconds, released the key from inside the disposal and I was able to pull out the ring of keys.

Oh happy day!

So he hugged and kissed me and sent me on my way.

And we lived happily ever after.

Well, except that I’m thinking of having a spare car key surgically implanted in my forehead so this will NEVER happen again!