The key saga

We used to have two complete sets of keys – with keys to both cars and the house. That was last summer. Then we loaned the Suburban to B’s dad for a day and made the mistake of not getting the keys back from him the second he walked in the door. Instead, he put them in his pocket, and they’ve never been seen again.

So we divided the remaining keys in half – one ring for each car. And that worked fairly well, except for the days when B would walk out with both sets of keys, leaving me trapped at home with children.

When we moved in here, B and I both tried to get in the habit of putting the keys in the same place every single time we came inside. And we were mostly good about it. I had about three places I’d stash the keys, and he’d forget and take them in his office. But we were doing well.

Then a month ago the keys to the Suburban vanished. We tore the house and cars and trash apart looking for them, and no luck. The Suburban sat, undriven, for weeks. But then came the rare day when B and I both had to be different places at the same time. B drove all the way in to town to the Chevy dealership, a dozen forms of ID to prove he owned the car in hand, and had a replacement key made. Just one.

He and I both intended to get over to the locksmith shop to have duplicates made of everything so that we could spare keys, but we never did.

For a week, the Suburban key sat on B’s desk all alone, no key ring. Then it vanished. We launched a house-wide search and offered a bounty for its return. Elizabeth finally pulled it out of her backpack.

I put the key on the biggest, brightest key ring I could find, to make it harder to lose and easier to spot. And that worked for all of 24 hours.

The key is missing again. I know right where I put it, and it’s not there. We’ve ransacked the house, checked in all of Elizabeth’s backpacks and hideyholes, searched the cars, and gone through the trash – again – and we still can’t find the damn thing. We’ve also bribed the kids and tried hypnosis on Elizabeth to get her to remember where she put the key.

I’m just OCD enough that not knowing where something like a key is makes me crazy. I pop up at random moments to search the junk drawer for the 12th time or to look in the paper trays of the printer or to check the link trap of the dryer. I also keep hoping against hope that we’ll find the original set of keys during this quest.

B is now swearing that he WILL NOT be getting another new key made for the car, even if it means we never drive the Suburban again.

Sigh.