Key Seeker

Forget my series on public safety. Who cares about all of you when I have a personal crisis on my hands? My school keys are missing! Yes, the keys to my workplace have been misplaced. Oh, don't think you're gonna find them and break in and run copies willy-nilly. It's not like they trust me with a master key, or a key to the building. Nope. I am one of the 10% of teachers in Newmentia who don't have a key to the building. You know, because the other 90% has to get in there after hours and on weekends because they work so much harder than me. All I am missing is the key to my room, and a key to one of my two cabinets. The other one won't lock, what with the hardware beging installed wrong since we moved into that building in 2000 or thereabouts. The keys are on a stretchy lime green keyring thingy from The Devil's Playground. I think I have had it since 2000. If we could cheaply carbon-date the dirt ground into that coiled old-style phone-cord-looking green plastic, we might know the true age of it.

I just noticed that it was gone at 3:30 today, when the #1 son picked up a package at the Post Office, and wanted to use my key to saw through the cardboard. He's as smart as a chimp at finding tools to suit his purpose. But my school keys were not in the little slot thingy made to hold glasses on the console of T-Hoe. I always keep them there. I never go to work without T-Hoe, so I can never forget my keys. Except now. They are gone.

#1 says that I left the keys in my classroom yesterday when we left open gym to take him to the hospital. I say no, that I locked my room, and I can only do that with the keys. I always check the thermostat so that I'm not bleeding taxpayer money into heating or cooling my classroom while I'm not there, and then I step into the hallway and lock my door. That's because I'm a fanatic about people getting into my stuff. #1 also says that I did not have my keys when I got into T-Hoe which I had to park out behind the gym. I know I DID have they keys then.

Upon locking my classroom, I navigated the obstacle course of the hallway full of the contents of the teacher workroom, AD office, and Nurse's office. I wound my way through the scattered cafeteria chairs, into the gym, along the shiny, shiny, newly-waxed concrete mezzanine, stopped at the top of the back stairs to the gym floor to untie the tape with the sign about fresh wax that was hung on Monday, gave #1 the keys to T-Hoe, tied the wax sign back across the handrails, then proceeded down the steps and a short hallway by the stage, and out the door by the band room. They are on a separate keyring, my personal keys. I had to take both sets of keys out of my pocket to sort them out. When I exited the building, I took my school keys from my pocket, and tossed them into their holding area in T-Hoe. From there, I called my mom to tell her I was taking #1 to the ER to have his head examined.

In one breath, #1 swears that I never had the school keys in T-Hoe, yet in the next breath, he says I must have left them in the ER when I wrote the check for his noggin test. That just goes to show you that you can't take the word of a 14-year-old with a concussion. My theory is that he moved the keys when we drove through McDonald's, when he made room to set some fries in the glasses compartment, and they are still somewhere in the dark recesses of T-Hoe's nooks and crannies. The boy swears that he never moved any keys, because they were not there.

After leaving the Post Office this afternoon, we stopped to buy a large quantity of fireworks, and dashed into Save-A-Lot for some tasty steaks to grill tomorrow. We then returned to the Mansion. I made #1 and The Pony search T-Hoe. I also made The Pony search HH's Pacifica, because we drove it to see Ice Age 3 and he stuffed my purse under the seat. Nope. No keys. #1 had a little fit because I was accusing him of losing my keys, but he never touched them, because I left them at school or in the hospital. I called the hospital, but nobody had turned in any keys. I went back to the garage, backed T-Hoe out into the light of day... and within 30 seconds, I found my school keys. They were wedged in a crack made from the little door thingy that closes over the glasses compartment. #1 had set the keys on the shiny fake wood console part behind that little compartment door, and they slid into that crack.

I went back into the house, jangling my keys. He raised his giant concussed head from the couch. "Where did you find those?" I explained that they were right where he put them. He still denies that the keys were even in T-Hoe.

That boy has too much of HH in him.