Ciao!

A story about keys

07.26.2003

The door buzzer startled me out of bed at 8:40am. Bay Jo was at the door, w/ Katie, and immediately apologized for waking me up so early. See, anyone that knows me knows that I am not a morning person. You're not really supposed to call me before noon. Heck, some days I wake up in the middle of the afternoon. Of course, the other side of this is that you can usually find me up and awake around 5am.

It's not that I'm lazy. It's that I don't have much to do. Or rather, I've nothing to do that demands an immediate deadline. During the Fall and Winter semesters I teach a course or two at the university — and those have usually been evening classes. There are the occasional but rare luncheons and, of course, dissertation committee meetings — and those are usually in the evening, too.

But I digress.

There was good reason for Bay Jo to appear at my door at 8:40am. I stumbled out of bed, w/ matted hair and half-shut eyes. Bay Jo stood in the doorway, holding my keys. I gave my best effort at a congratulatory smile, said "thank you", before sauntering back to bed.

Now that I'm properly awake, I'm ecstatic. Bay Jo found my keys! They've been lost since Sunday, but now they're found. I now have all my keys back. That's amazing.

Of course, in searching for my keys, I tried retracing my steps. This is, as everyone knows, the most important element of searching for lost items. Especially keys that clip onto one's pant's belt loops. They might've fallen anytime. Of course, I assume that I'd hear them fall, so I focused on the places I'd sat. Nevertheless, I did retrace my walking route from home to The Fourth Coast more than twice. I did not find my keys this way.

My keys were not at The Fourth Coast, where I sat for a half hour before Bay Jo and Josh Upson called to invite me to dinner. My keys were not in Upson's car, where I sat on the way to dinner. My keys were not found by any Pizza Hut employees, where we sat, eating pan pizza and discussing how horrible the new MTV Spiderman was. My keys were not in Sara Simpson's car, where I sat on my way back from dinner. My keys were not in Bay Jo's car, where I sat on the way from Sarah's house to Bret's. My keys were not at Bret's house, where I played scrabble.

So. My keys were gone. Gone was my mailbox key. My landlord gave me the original, and I've been unable to find a locksmith that can make a working duplicate. Gone were my office keys. Which I don't really need, since I can always go during "normal" business hours (but I'd rather go late at night). Gone were my apartment keys. Which meant I had to break into my apartment late at night to retrieve my extra set — which were in the apartment. Gone was a U-lock key that had no duplicate. Gone. Gone. Gone.

But then I discovered — at 8:40am — that my keys had been in Bay Jo's car after all. They'd somehow slid off my belt loop and into her belt buckle cover. Katie found them and the two of them brought them immediately to me.

Posted by Miguel at 04:45 PM

Comments

Posted by: mark at July 27, 2003 07:54 AM