the biggest loser

I lost my keys.

On Sunday, I drove home from church, unlocked the door, and that was the last I saw of them. I didn't think much about them on Sunday because I knew they had to be in the house. But on Monday, after my husband left for work with his set of car keys, I knew I'd better start looking if we were going to drive to G's after school swimming lesson.

So I cleaned the house. I looked everywhere: under beds, in drawers, on shelves, even in the sugar bowl. I found our pet rabbit's leash that's been lost since fall (It was under the Santa hat in the antique flour barrel - of course), but no keys. My husband T drove home on his scooter in the middle of his shift to bring me his set of car keys, so I could drive to the pool.

The evening routine kicked in: supper, spelling practice, home reading, plant watering, bath, taking out the garbage, snack, stories, and my tea in bed. Somewhere in there, I realized that I'd also lost an envelope of prizes I'd won on the radio, coupons for free mini-golf, bowling, and portraits. Dang.

I woke at 5:30 this morning to noisy birds because hubby left the window open all night, and my first thought was Garbage. I ran out in my bathrobe and grabbed the bin from the curb. I carried it behind the house and began pulling smelly bags out onto the lawn. I didn't expect to find anything, but I had to make sure. I pulled out T's Frappuccino cup that I'd cleaned out of the car on Sunday, and there they were underneath.

(After unlocking the door on Sunday, I must have still had my keys hanging off one of my fingers when I threw in a bag of garbage someone had left outside the backdoor, and not noticed they were no longer hanging off my finger when I went in the house.)

I felt lightheaded: sick thinking I'd been an hour away from sent my keys to landfill, and free knowing I'd actually found them.

I returned the garbage to the curb in time for the garbage truck, went back into the house, walked straight to the filing cabinet, grabbed the folder labelled "Taxes," and pulled out my radio prize pack.

In some parallel universe, I'm sure my life makes sense, but down here, I'm just glad when it all works out.