Since there is no game on tonight, I am hoping for a renewed sense of clarity in my writing. It looks like we’ll just have to keep on hoping. While I’m sure the ability to focus will eventually return, it has not happened yet, and it is starting to affect more than just my blogging.

I feel like I have lost my mind, and my children are hard at work sealing the deal. Last night after dinner D decided we should all go out for some ice cream. As I packed up the usual week’s worth of provisions that are required when ever we drive up the street, I noticed my keys were missing. No big deal, they will turn up somewhere.

This morning my mother in law and I had planned on dropping off my car with the mechanic. It had begun to appear that my little ride would “piddle” every time it was parked somewhere for more than an hour. Since I am assuming they don’t make Depends in “Nissan size” you just need to get them right in the shop. Since the keys were still nowhere to be seen, I had to grab the spare set. Now I had to wonder all day…”Where the hell were my keys?”

By the time we got home I was hell bent on finding them. I tore up every spot in the house where they could possibly be stashed, but no dice. It became obvious that they had somehow fallen into the wrong hands…the wrong, teeny, tiny hands. “Where are mommy’s keys?” I asked a bit too chipper. At-man totally ignored me, his usual M.O. and Em, well, how the hell are you supposed to get answers out of someone who is still largely incapable of putting together two consecutive words in English? The look in his eyes told me, the keys cold be anywhere. I tried to think like Em. “If I were pretending to be Cookie Monster hiding mommy’s keys, where would I put them? After about an hour I had to face facts. I had no idea where he could have put them, and me pretending to be Em pretending to be Cookie Monster had no idea either.

It was at this point that I decided to chuck the entire search and fold some laundry. Right in front of the dryer was a 12 pack of Diet Sprite and as I went to drag it out of the way I noticed something not terribly Sprite-like. In the front of the cans was a toy microphone. Odd, they must be running some type of new promotion. I pulled out the mike and behind it, in the very last place in the entire universe I ever would have looked, there were my keys!

Many years ago my Grandma gave me a key with St. Christopher on it. I have it on my key chain and consider it my “lucky” key, because I was raised in an Irish family that firmly believed things like someone was going to die if you put new shoes on a table and lucky keys are what I took from that part of my upbringing. I was actually getting misty at the thought of never seeing my lucky key again. I’m sure you are as relieved as I am that this story actually has an end. My lucky key and me are together again, footloose and fancy free. I have come away from this experience with a word of advice for all of you. Never leave anything important lower than 4 feet off the ground, that is, unless you never want to see it again.