Day 829 Monday April 15, 2019
567 Days to the 2020 election and 645 Days to Inauguration Day
You know what today is don’t you?
It’s my wife’s birthday! Yeah.
( What? Tax Day? Really? Oh. Hum.)
Because of the strangeness of this day in that for me, it’s a time of celebration and for all of us it’s a time of some anguish, I thought I’d take a slightly different tact on today’s screed. . .
It all started a long time ago … at least last week seemed like a long time ago. We were having Shelby’s brother’s family over for dinner, a thing we try to do once a week. Their youngest, Claire, helped me get the deck furniture out of the shed and arranged on the deck. She’s in the first grade. As part of a learning experience I had her use the key to unlock the shed. A day or so later I couldn’t find the key. This isn’t unusual. I keep the key on a pegboard hook in the garage. It wasn’t on the hook. No problem, that means I left it in a pocket and forget to put it on the hook.
Not in any shirt pocket or pants pocket that I wore. At least, not the three to seven times I looked. (or as George Carlin used to say about lost things, “Did you look in your pockets again? Maybe it came back?” No luck.) I then started fantasizing about where it might have gotten to. Maybe it fell out of one of my pockets and is now in the bottom of my laundry hamper? No.
Maybe it’s just mixed in with the laundry and hasn’t made it to the bottom of the hamper? No.
When was the last time I remember using it? …
And that’s when I remembered – Claire! and the deck furniture.
I texted over to her house. I even stopped by. We searched all of her pockets. She found her dad’s shed key. The one he paid a locksmith $150 to replace because it was a deadbolt. Yeah, that one fell out and was in the plastic overflow tub of their washer.
With the help of Claire’s imagination and suggestions of where it might be or have gotten to, a whole world of low percentage possibilities were envisioned. I cursed myself for not putting that bronze patina tiny key on a bright ribbon because if had fallen into the grass near where Claire had staged the chairs to go up on the deck from the lawn it would be very hard to see. I wondered if it was made of steel and could I sweep the lawn with a magnet, and did I have a large magnet to do such a job?
I thought about going the bolt cutter route. I looked at videos. You can break a cheap padlock like I have with two open ended wrenches. Well, at least the guy in the video could. I couldn’t. I moved onto trying lock picking. Hey, might as well learn a new skill. There’s a video showing how to pick such a lock with two paperclips. Once again, the guy in the video did it – repeatedly. Me? Not so much. I came to an important conclusion. You have to know what you are doing. Hum. I wish our president had thought about that as a qualification before he ran for office, but he obviously didn’t (okay, that’s the only political thing I’m throwing in this screed – carry on.)
I went to the auto parts store, “Do you have lock picking tools?” Answer, “No, you have to get them on line.” (That’s nice, but the grass won’t wait that long*.)
*In an effort to be “transparent” (that’s the latest buzzword for being honest) and in an effort of full disclosure (that’s the latest buzz word for “explaining.” (Not “Man ‘splainin’ “ just explaining stuff. 🙂 ) ) The lawn mower is in the shed. To be able to cut the grass I have to be able to get to the lawn mower, to get to the mower I have to be able to get into the shed, to be able to get into the shed I have to be able to open the door, to be able to open the door I have to be able to unlock the lock on the door to the shed. (or unscrew the screws on the hasp, or use the bolt cutter which I will have to borrow from Claire’s dad – Yes, all these options are/were/have been considered. )
Finally, I decided, I wanted to learn a bit more about how to open pesky locks. I ordered a set of tools. They wouldn’t be here in time to help with this lock, because by then the grass and weeds would be higher than our knees, but at least I could work on my new desired skill.
Which brings me to Derek Hough. If you don’t know who he is you haven’t watched “Dancing With the Stars.” He and his sister, Julianne, are examples of what really really good genes can do. They are both gorgeous – as in “drop dead, take your breath away” gorgeous. (Now some people might say, “Well, you know I really didn’t like when they did such and such” or something like that. To which I say, “What? Sorry. You were saying?” ) Derek came to town last night and had a dance show at the Altria Theater. Richmond’s famous large big old theater, formerly known as The Mosque (so named back when arabs were considered genies and riding on carpets.) He filled it about 3/4 full, which is saying something because the only publicity I saw was the hand bill I was given when leaving the same theater a few months before when the Dancing with The stars troupe came to town.
The show was full of energy and effect. The dancers were flexible and athletic. Derek did a routine from Singin’ in The Rain. He said his dancers were so young (20) they didn’t know that movie. What? How can you be a dancer and not know that movie? OMG! Derek is old – 33. Yeah, old enough that ever female in the audience (which was 3/4 of the audience) was screaming for him, like we were at an Elvis revival show. (Hum, did I just mix religion and rock and roll? I think I did. I like it.)
The show was fun, energetic (Did I say that already?), and had a great positive feeling to it.
We left happy. I was escorting my wife, my mother-in-law, and our new neighbor Gwen.
While we were waiting to exit the parking lot an interesting thing happened. The lot is five stories. We were on the top level. It takes 15 or 20 minutes to empty. Once our level started to move I was able to back up a bit and turn to go forward and come in line with the exiting traffic by crossing a series of now empty parking spaces. I was inching to get in line and beside one of those giant SUVs. The ladies in my car said the woman in the SUV had rolled down her passenger side window. I rolled down my window. She looked (down) on me and said, “Uh huh, that’s not happening.”
She then rolled up her widow the hulking piece of crap she was in lumbered forward and I in my fuel efficient save the Earth Prius fell in behind.
I have never had such an experience before. I wondered how she felt as her vehicle drove on. I thought of many great retorts. I wished my father-in-law was with us. He could have gotten out of our car, run forward, and given that woman a little bit of what-for while they waited to exit the parking lot. At one point after leaving the lot these folks were in the lane beside us and I thought they were going to have to move into our lane. Unfortunately. they didn’t. Well, it wasn’t happening even if they did need to move over. (Uh huh, not happening.)
Then I thought of a variant on a Johnny Carson curse, “May the spit of a thousand camels be upon your face.” etc. etc. etc.
Which brings me back to the reason I started writing about all this in the first place. (Actually, I should have mentioned this before now, but forgot.)
Two things: 1) Before leaving to go to the theater Shelby asked me if I had the tickets. I assured her I did. I went to the place where I keep all tickets and they weren’t there. I didn’t panic. At least, not at that moment. I methodically went through every conceivable piece of paper and possible place in my office they might be. To say my office is a mess is an understatement. I’m amazed I can find anything. I had started a massive clean up and organization effort for the third time just last week, which included taking most of the stuff out of the drawer where the tickets should be. Surely, the tickets are in with everything that I took out of the drawer.
No.
Maybe, they fell out of everything that I took out and fell on another pile of stuff?
No.
Okay, mother-in-law has puled up, we are within an hour and a half of time to leave. (My thinking now is – I can spend whatever I need to at the box office and get more seats – unless they’re sold out…)
Soon the neighbor will be over and I’ll have to confess. “I can’t find the tickets.” I’m sure worse things have happened to me, but this is pretty bad. Not real real bad, but pretty bad.
Shelby is chatting with her mom, downstairs, I’ll have to ask her. But I don’t want Brenda to panic. I’ll have to signal Shelby.
“Come here.”, “Who me?”, “Yes, you. Come here” Follow me upstairs. “What’s wrong? You look worried.”, “I can’t find the tickets. Is there any chance I gave them to you?”
She goes to her folder. Looks way down and pulls out the envelope. Of course I gave them to her! Why would I hold onto them? I give her stuff like that so things like I just went through don’t happen.
Here’s comes our neighbor. We sit in the living room and talk. I’m on the short sofa and as we get up to leave I push myself off the cushion. I feel something. It’s a small piece of metal. It’s the shed key! Claire must have put it in her pocket, come in her to the sofa, which she uses as a jungle gym, rolled around on the top back and the key must have fallen out of her pocket at that time. I immediately put a gold twist tie on it.
So now the lawn can get cut.
Yeah, that’s happening. (What a great birthday present for Shelby!)
567 Days to the 2020 election and 645 Days to Inauguration Day
PS The Key
