me, st anthony and the keys

Following on my previous blog where I clearly outlined the dangers of letting me be responsible for the parking ticket in a mall, I now have to further report that I did, on Saturday afternoon, manage to lose my car key.  Of my new car.  Which I have had for 5 weeks. Luckily this tale has a happy ending.

It was very uncomplicated.  I came home from the carwash and coffee with my BFF.  Pulled into my garage at home (which meant I had the key), got out the car and opened the boot from that same remote (which means I had the key), took out the shopping and my handbag and packed into the boot a box for paper pick-up, some plastics for re-use at Irene Homes and 2 other items.  When I wanted to close the boot and lock the car the key was missing.  Now it takes a special kind of stupid to lose your key right by your car .......

I was calm.  I mean it had to be right there.  Right?  Wrong!  I went through the 2 grocery bags and my handbag (the latter took 36 minutes as it contained everything including half a goat).  No key.  Then I took those few items out the boot.  Nothing.  Look in car again in case I had put it down in some weird way.  I unpacked the cubby, took out the mats, searched under the seats .... I mean for heavens sake it had taken all of 2 mins to lose the key.  An hour ticked by, I started looking through the paper pick-up with a fine tooth comb.  I opened the flap to the spare wheel.  I looked on the tyres, I looked under the car.  Nothing. I was strongly considering to intensify the search with the help of some Tequila shooters.  Or not.

On the advice of a friend I prayed to St Anthony.  After hunting for some time again, friend suggested I move on to St Jude.  I think I managed to drive both Saints crazy.  Another friend told me to ask for help in finding key and stick a pin in the pinboard in the kitchen.  I went through 4 and a quarter boxes of pins and eventually ran out of space to put them.  No key.

Back to car with hubby.  Take everything out the boot for the 4th time.  Go through empty boot.  Go through car.  Mutter a lot.  Move to some stronger vocab.  Go through paper box and other items.  Re-pack boot.  Retrace steps from driver door to boot .... 3 steps .... how hard can it be.  No key.

And so it went for 3 hours, interspersed only by 3 cups of very strong coffee and a lot of retracing of steps.  It is not that we did not have a spare key.  We do.  But the thought of using it and not having a backup for a 5 week old car .... that made me more upset.

Eventually at 530pm we abandoned the search and went to Mass. We have been in that parish forever.  We usually go to the Sunday night Mass unless I read at another Mass.  It seems very quiet when we get there.  It is, because we are 45 mins early.  In all the trauma of the key we got the Mass time wrong.  More coffee as we wait.

After Mass we have hot chocolate, tea and coffee with new friends and they are highly amused by my quandary.  Even our dear priest is shaking his head .......... with laughter.  We bid our farewells and go to the car.  It then strikes me ...... did that huge box not hook the key?  I look under the box.  There it is, wedged into the bottom of the box, despite the fact that we removed and put it back in the car 4 times.

"Yes knucklehead", says my dear hubby.  But fondly.

Now ...... what did I do with my IPad?

till next time
c'est la vie xxx