You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Losing your keys.
Not once, but twice in the span of 30 minutes.
It’s easy to lose your keys once. We’ve all done it. We’ve all checked our pockets over and over and over again searching the same place for a set of keys that is no where to be found. We’ve all looked multiple times in the center console of our car, the night stand in our bedroom, the bathroom counter, the hook on the mirror by the rear door, only to scratch our heads and mentally retrace our steps.
I’ve looked in a garbage can before. Why would they be in the garbage can? They wouldn’t, but you just do silly things when you lose something.
It’s a frantic game of hide and go seek until you find them.
Hmmmm? How did they get there. Oh well, who cares. Whew, what a relief. And suddenly you are moving on to the next minor problem that life tosses your way.
Losing your keys once is frustrating. To lose your keys a second time, just 30 minutes later? That’s a call for help.
Losing your keys twice in the time it takes to watch a re-run of Seinfeld; well that is serious key losing. It’s the World Series of key losing. It could be the theme of a sitcom, a skit on Saturday Night Live.
I’m at a neighborhood block party Saturday night. Hundreds of residents are milling about, enjoying a warm evening.
The woman in question (who will go nameless because she begged me not to write about this) has been talking to our group.
Local musicians are all around us playing, entertaining the crowd. The air is ripe with melodies and laughter. Every hand has an adult beverage in it. Golf carts are driving by, kids are running and dogs are prancing. It’s a picture post card evening.
The sun is setting and the preliminary acts are winding down. Suddenly it is time to move to the central area of the complex where the main stage is set up and the band is about to play for the finale.
I look down in my folding chair and there is a set of keys. The decorative key case houses what appears to be a softball sized clump of metal. I see so many keys in this case. I wonder how many locks this person opens on any given day. I wonder if there is a key for every door in this woman’s home. Perhaps there is a key to the powder room, to the pantry, to the shed out back.
“Hey (name retracted to protect the innocent) left her keys in my chair.”
“She always does this,” my friend says.
I pick up the clump of keys and feel its weight, it’s density.
“Man that’s a lot of keys,” I say to no one in particular.
I shove the glob of metal in my pocket. It feels awkward, as every bit of space in my pocket disappears. My thigh is suddenly being gouged by a metallic cactus of discomfort. Every step is now a laborious jingle of metal. Some how my personal aerodynamics are being off set by a clump of lost keys.
“Man this is a chunk of keys, ” I say to my buddy.
He chuckles. “I know, right?”
We meander past porch parties and acoustic bands playing music. It’s an amazing display of talent put on by one Nashville community so rich in musical ability, it’s almost absurd. We stop a few times to listen to musical acts ranging from country, to Latin to classic rock.
I walk like the hunchback of Notre Dame to the main stage. My right knee is sore from supporting an extra gravitational pull of metal.
After a few minutes, the woman who lost her keys saunters through the darkened crowd of inebriation.
She has a huge warm smile on her face. “I’m glad you found them,” she says happily.
“No problem,” I say handing the scrap yard of keys back to her.
We chit chat for a few minutes about the band and the crowd and our kids. And then she disappears back into the night.
We are moving and grooving to the jams when suddenly the band stops playing and the lead singer bellows into the mic.
“Attention citizens of Earth. Some one has found a clump of keys in the street.”
Now he did’t say it like this, but it felt that way.
I turn to my buddy. “No freaking way. It couldn’t be.”
The lead singer continues. “Yes, it could.”
Again he did’t say that, but it sure would have been funny if he had.
“I’m holding a pineapple sized chunk of metal and there appears to be a dungeon key here as well”
“That’s (name withdrawn to protect one very nice young lady from undo embarrassment) key’s, dude. She loses them all the time,” my friend says.
“I just returned them to her. There is no way those could be her keys. It was like 15 minutes ago.”
The lead singer interrupts us. “There appears to be a Volvo key in this spider web of metal,” He laughs. “Someone found them in the middle of the street and brought them to the stage. We have them up here. If they are yours then come by the main stage and pick them up.”
And the band begins playing again.
My friend gets on his phone and dials (name retracted on the grounds that she might sue me for slander).
“You lost your keys again,” he chuckles into the phone. “No, they’re at the stage, the lead singer just announced it. Uh huh. Yep. Well that’s where they are.”
He hangs up.
We both laugh.
A few minutes later she comes back to us holding her suitcase of keys in the brightly colored sheath. She is smiling as she shows us her keys.
She will tell us how she dropped them innocently and someone found them in the street so quickly that she didn’t have time to even look for them but she was relieved they were found.
We laugh. It’s harmless, it’s fun, it’s crazy.
As we talk she will drop her phone and juggle all the things in her hands.
“You need a purse or a fanny pack,” I will say over the music.
She knows I am right. She is wearing a skirt with no pockets. She will juggle a dozen things in her hands as she makes her way back through the crowd.
Could it happen a 3rd time?
I look at my buddy and we laugh.
Life’s Crazy™