I looked up on the wall
The beetles and the bed bugs
Were playing a game of ball.
Ok, so that song came to mind while I was trying to figure out a way to start this post and the first thought that came to mind was "I woke up Saturday morning." I remembered that song from girlscout summer camp and has nothing to do with the great key debacle.
If you've been following my tweets at all, you'll know that my husband lost his keys sometime between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. If you have not been following my tweets and have no idea what I'm talking about, then let me give you the run down: My husband lost his keys sometime between Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. Now you're all caught up!
Since my dear sweet husband had a softball game to get to, there was no time for him to search for the keys; so he took my car to the game and left me and the boys behind. I tried to retrace his steps, figuring how where he was when the keys were last seen; in the garage. He and his friend Travis had dug out the air soft guns and had a shoot out. When that was finished, James had taken his keys from the work bench to unlock his truck so that Travis could get his sunglasses. The truck was locked back up and the keys... well... who knows where they went from there. I peered into the truck, but did not see anything. I searched the garage high and low, inside and out.
I moved the lawn mower, I checked in all the cabinets and drawers, I emptied the contents of the bag where the airsoft guns were kept, I even checked the bin where the dog food is kept. There were no keys to be found.
I moved to the front yard, thinking maybe the keys had fallen out of his pocket. The grass and rocks were carefully looked over, the cracks in the driveway and sidewalk were searched. I looked under rocks and bushes and still no keys.
I came inside and started searching in and around the usual spots where he leaves them. He has a blue basket where he empties the contents of his pockets into; all his loose change, lighters and, of course, his keys before he goes to bed at night. I emptied the basket and confiscated some quarters came up with nothing. I cleaned off the dresser, emptied drawers and moved the dresser away from the wall to see if they had fallen back behind it. The keys were not to be found.
I did, however, find some jewelry that I thought I had lost along with 2 chargers. 1 charger that goes to an old Blue Tooth I no longer have and another charger I still have no idea what it goes to. Hmmm, wait a sec... Just had an idea. Never mind. One mystery solved. It goes to my digital picture keychain. I really should update that thing with new pictures.
Ahem.
I also found a pencil sharpener, a few pens and pencils, some old car wash coins and a lighter.
I continued my search... under the bed.
I will spare you the horror of seeing what I found under the bed, but not from describing it. Your welcome. Besides the items we placed under there *cough*
I moved out of the bedroom and into the dining/kitchen/computer area. I glanced through the kitchen rather quickly because James rarely spends time in the kitchen and moved on to the computer area.
In case you were wondering, no, I did not clean my desk just so I could take a picture of it. Today just happened to be cleaning day. Ok, so I did move the diet dr. pepper can, my purse, and a can of air spray before taking the picture. I also put the scissors back in the holder and the pad of paper back on the hutch. Don't judge me!
I didn't find anything interesting, nor did I find the keys. I moved on to the living room. Remembering that James and Travis were playing Guitar Hero, I thought maybe the keys had fallen out while they were playing their video game.
I lifted the couch and found several tinker toys. I left them there. I removed the cushions and found another one of John's many missing socks, several hotwheels, more tinker toys and a foam dart. No keys. I looked under the love seat, inside the arm rest, dug under and behind the seats and still no keys. I glanced under the table and found my lens cap. I removed the cushion from the chair and found another hotwheel and a quarter. I was pretty stoked about the quarter and thought by the time I got done searching for these keys I will have found enough money in pennies, knickels, dimes and quarters to buy me a new lens for Nikki.
With no luck finding the keys in the living room, I moved into the boys bedroom. I searched under the bed, in the closet, opened all the drawers to their dresser and night stand, lifted the mattresses on their bed and looked on the windowsill. No friggin' keys.
I decided to take a break. I sat on the couch, contemplating areas I have not yet searched. I updated twitter and facebook pleading for idea's on where I should look for missing keys. I followed up on every.single.one. Or rather, to the best of my ability. My friend, Courtney, suggested I look in the freezer and eat a bowl of ice cream while I was in their. No keys were found in the freezer and much to my dismay, no ice cream either. Darn.
My sister, Rhiannon, suggested they could be on a black shelf. This is where she found her keys once and they were hard to see camalflouged with the shelf. I looked around, but I have no black shelves.
Lisa suggested they were in a pocket or hanging in the closet. I checked all the pockets of the jeans I had washed that day, all the jacket pockets from everybody who had worn one on Friday and Saturday, I shook all the clothes on both sides of the closet and heard not a jingle.
Terri suggested the couch cushions (all ready done), the garbage (not gonna happen), between the seats in the car (truck was locked, I couldn't look and James had the car), or in the bathroom. Awesome, a new idea. But they weren't there either.
Mona suggested the toy box. (I'd rather go through the garbage) The toy box gets cleaned out once a year and there's no way I'm going to torture myself more then that.
My BFF, Stephanie, wanted to know if I would let her know where I found them because she lost her keys about a month ago and wanted to know where she could look to find them. Thanks Steph, that was helpful.
My mom said to ask John. Yea right! Like that would get me anywhere.
But I was pretty desperate for idea's so I gave it a shot.
"John, where's daddy's keys?"
"Oh, I'll show you!" - Takes my hand and walks me into my bedroom and points to daddy's blue basket.
"No John, they aren't there. I all ready looked."
"Oh." - Walks over to the bed and looks all around the night stand and under the bed.
*sigh* I knew that was a bad idea.
My mom again suggested they would be in the last place I looked. Fan-freakin'-tastic, mom.
Then there was Becca. She said she had them and would only give them back if I traded them for my camera. My DSLR camera. I told her she could keep the keys. We'd buy a new truck! James was a little too excited over the prospect of a new truck when I told him about this conversation!
I decided to contact road side assistance so they could break into James' truck. 45 minutes later, I was searching the cushions, the dashboard and underneath the seats of his truck and still no friggin' keys. All that breaking in for nothing.
I called the pizza place where we had dinner and the bowling alley where we hung out on Friday night. Neither place had any keys turned in. I checked craigslist's 'lost and found' section to see if anybody had found them and didn't turn them in to the facility. No keys. At least, not James' keys.
James got home from his softball game, I had run out of places to look and was no longer finding interesting things. I decided to give up the search for the night, but found myself scanning for missed area's to search in every room I entered. I went to bed with visions of dust bunnies, hiding places and keys dancing in my head.
I woke early this morning, read a passage from my bible and prayed. Prayed for help in finding the keys. I made donuts for breakfast and thought up idea's for where the keys could be hiding. I ate the donuts I made and decided they really weren't that good. FYI, don't make donutes with cake mix. They're really gross. I searched for keys. I woke up James and searched for keys. I went to church, played with kids, came home and searched for keys. I called the pizza place and the bowling ally again and the both said there still were no keys turned in. I searched craigslist again and the keys that were on there were the same ones from yesterday. I finally decided the keys were a lost cause. James had given up hours before and was calling the Ford dealerships to see if any of them were open so they could make new keys. None of them were. Awesome. We were desperate. We had run out of idea's. We had searched every knook and cranny known to man. In my desperation, I had even searched the playroom. I turned up 2 more socks and something I won't even mention except to say I made James bring in a tissue so he could clean it up. Finally, James had called a locksmith. The guy said he would be here in 30-45 minutes. We waited. I played on facebook and twittered some more. The guy came. His name was Todd. He was my hero. I don't know why he was my hero. It's not like I was going to miss out on work tomorrow. It's not like I had lost my keys. I suppose it's because of all the time I had spent searching for the keys and knowing that my search was about to come to an end. Todd saved my sanity today. He made 2 keys. HA HA! 2 keys!! We would have a spare!
This is Todd. My hero for the day. He was very soft spoken and too honest for his own good. After discussing the James Gary name issue we have going on here (There are 3 James Gary's living under this roof) I said "Do you see what I have to live with?" He replied, "I'm not responsible for your choices." OUCH! Nobody had ever put it to me that way before. I have to say it stung just a little bit. But I quickly forgave him because he was the reason I no longer had to search for the keys. And he was very gracious about having his picture taken for this blog post.
Not only did he fix our key problem, but he also gave us idea's on how to unstick our screen door. The screen door has been giving us fits for weeks now and when Todd attempted to close the screen door and failed, he looked at the area it was sticking and told James how to fix it.
And now, I will rest easy knowing that James will be able to drive tomorrow and that all my dust bunnies have been cleaned out and I may very well have found all of John's missing socks. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to count all the coins I found and see if it's enough to by that lens.
