If You Happen to Find my Brain, I'd Like it Back

It was such a fun day. Photoguy had to take some photos for a guy at my favorite restaurant -- Taggart's -- and, we were all treated to a fabulous lunch. I felt really spoiled because just yesterday my mom took me out to lunch at my other favorite restaurant -- Bombay Grill -- for tasty Indian food (which I was craving because just two days before we had Indian food in Salt Lake at the Himalayan Kitchen).

After the awesome meal, Photoguy headed off to work. The kids and I met my mom and made a new discovery for my list of fun things to do in Ogden -- Toad's. They have arcade games, laser tag, mini-golf, go-carts and other fun stuff like that. We rode the go-carts and played 18-holes of mini-golf on their elaborate course (haunted houses, colorful castles, waterfalls). To top it all off, we even went out to ice-cream at Pop's Malt Shop.

At the end of the day, I brought the kids home all sticky and tired. We hadn't had dinner. Some of us needed to use the facilities. We were all thristy. And, AiAi was asleep. That is when I discovered we were LOCKED OUT!

Earlier in the day, when I left, I hadn't been able to find my keys, so rather than take the time to find them, I just grabbed the spare van key and left the back door un-locked (since I didn't have a house key). I know, I know, it isn't the smartest thing to do. I should really be locking my door.

When I came home, I discovered that the new, obscure deadbolt, which we almost never ever lock, was locked earlier that day by Photoguy in some random sequence of events. So even though the door was "unlocked" it was barricaded shut by the deadbolt -- ugh.

I opened up the garage to get the spare key to unlock the front door and it was GONE! So, then, I had to call Photoguy (who FYI is working in Salt Lake until midnight so it wasn't like he could just drop off a key) to ask if he knew where the spare key was. Yes, he did know. It is the one we gave the realtor for the lock-box. Gah! The last thing I wanted to do was explain to him that I had taken the spare van key, because then he would say, "Why didn't you take your keys," and, I would say, "Because I couldn't find them," -- this really annoys him because he never loses his keys and for some reason I always seem to lose mine -- then, he would say, "Well, you have to find them," and, then I would have to say, "That is all well and good for you to say, but, you don't understand that if I always made a point to find everything I lost, I wouldn't be able to do anything else in my life other than run around in circles looking for things." I know, I know, I don't know how I got to be so forgetful or why I always seem to lose everything. It's so frustrating! But, since I am constantly losing things, I just figure out clever (or, in this case, not so clever) coping mechanisms, like leaving the back door unlocked, for example. In the end, everything seems to turn up. I just don't have time after I've taken everyone to the bathroom, put everyone's shoes on, and done one million other things to get myself and three kids out the door to run around looking for keys! I mean, I did look, but when they weren't in any of the obvious places, I grabbed the spare key, hastily unlocked the back door, and moved on.

I was starting to panic and have visions of the kids and I sleeping on the floor at my parents' house with no P.J.'s, toothbrushes or clean underwear in the morning. So, as embarrassing as it was, I decided to call my realtor to get the key out of the lockbox. He didn't answer, so I called his wife (we are friends) just to see if he was with her. Turned out she was on her way to Delta and he was on his way to Wyoming. Baaahhh! So, she said, "Don't worry, I'll find someone to help you." And, she proceeds to make, I don't know how many phone calls to how many people to interrupt their fine evening to ask if they can run out and unlock a door for some wacky absent-minded lady.

As I'm sitting there in the driveway thinking about the whole situation, I start to think about my lost keys. Wouldn't it be ridiculous if my lost keys were actually somewhere out here in my van where I could access them all along? So, I start rummaging through my huge purse. I pull out two pairs of shorts and underwear (AiAi is potty training), a few diapers, my wallet, my cell phone, two handfulls of trash, and 12 pieces of gum that my kids emptied out of their package. You guessed it. There were my lost keys at the very bottom. But, see, I hardly ever put my keys in my purse (because that would be the most likely place, of course), so, I had only done a half-hearted search of my purse the first time. This is another problem with my problem of losing things -- not seeing them when they are right in front of my face when I look for them.

But, now, I'm feeling even one million times more silly because I HAD MY KEY ALL ALONG. So, I have to call my realtor's wife (who is now in some remote corner of Utah and has no cell phone service), and finally I get a hold of my realtor instead, and he says, "Oh, someone is on their way right now, so let me call them back." Who knows how many people I've disturbed with this whole fiasco.

And, now the worst part of all. What am I suppose to tell Photoguy? I'm beginning to understand my friend "Neighbor Lady's" words, whenever she does something particularly humiliating, she says, "Please don't tell my husband. If he rolls his eyes any further back into his head, they are going to get stuck there, from all the stupid things I've done over the years."