As they say, what comes around, goes around. My husband, Dave, is back to losing his keys on a regular basis again. Of course, he was all indignant and said he does not always lose his keys. Is he kidding? He has historically lost his keys since I've known him.
We started out our marriage nearly three decades ago by just locking ourselves out of the house. So we distributed house keys to one and all. Then we began losing our entire key rings. I started keeping a spare set on hand and if couldn't find that, I'd just call my Mom and have her bring over the extra spare set.
I bought Dave a nice big key chain once in the hopes it would be easier to keep track of. It was the numeral 1 with the word "honey" engraved on it. I thought I was just too cool thinking that one up -- No. 1 Honey.
And it took him about two weeks to lose it. He set his keys on top of the car and then used one of the other sets to drive off. He took a shortcut road to his buddy's about two blocks over. I walked that two blocks, scanning the ground, a million times, but the keys were nowhere to be found.
I even called the police station to see if anyone had turned them in. All that did was put it on public record that we're morons when it comes to hanging on to our keys.
I think the turning point for me in not losing my keys was when I started collecting key chains. I never replaced the old one, I just added to it. My favorite was the one that had a picture of Mr. Potato Head that said he was the world's greatest boyfriend and if he so much as looked at another girl, you could rearrange his face.
I had a big, glittery one with my name on it and one with a Pontiac symbol from my first car. I also had one with a symbol of whatever make of car I was driving then. I had a lot of those because we were kind of in the Car of the Month Club back then. We were broke-broke, so we'd buy junkers, fix them up a little and drive them until they died. Then get another one and do it again.
There's a whole section in the kitchen junk drawer devoted to car keys from Lord-only-knows-what. Isn't that ironic that we have a drawer full of keys that go to nothing we own and he can't find his key ring with two keys on it attached to a plastic Browns helmet the size of a golf ball. How he could lose that is beyond me. But they're definitely among the missing. Probably hanging out with all those socks we lost in the laundry.
I did recently gain a little insight into the missing socks dilemma. Our oldest son happened by when I was lamenting about all the single socks and said "I bet I have a pile in my room that looks just like that." Here I've been blaming the washer and dryer for their disappearance when he's been hoarding single socks in his room.
But does he know anything about Daddy's keys is the real question. Nope. Not so much.
We searched all the usual places like the pockets of every coat on the rack. We even checked all the secret inside pockets they put in men's coats. Oh, that's right. Women aren't supposed to know about those. Just like we don't know about the secret flap in a man's wallet.
I thought about giving him my key to the garage. Mostly because I'm not a morning person. When I leave for work in the morning, it's with the bare minimum of time. So I have neither the time nor the inclination to sluff down to the garage to turn off the outside lights and then shuffle back up to start the Jeep.
But, it's also infuriating to get home from work some nine hours later and see them still blaring in the broad daylight. I could shut them off then, but what's the point? By that time, we're about an hour or so away from turning them back on.
If I gave him my key to the garage, he could turn off the lights. Or, he could lose my key, too, and then neither one of us will have a key to the garage. That's not helping. So we will just continue our massive manhunt for those elusive little creatures -- his keys.
Copyright 2013 Laura Nethken
Comments