Where's My KEYS!?!?!?!?!

Now that deer season is in full swing, I don't get to see John much but I have constant quality time with my children of whom I love and treasure each moment that I have. But, sometimes I feel the need for a little "me" time. I've been feeling a little stressed lately; not really anything that I can put my finger on as a cause but it is there nonetheless.

I awoke Sunday morning feeling particularly good. I got up and assisted the kids in getting dressed for church. One acquired a little more assistance as he usually fights it every step of the way; not that he doesn't like going to church....he just doesn't care for putting clothes on for ANYTHING!!! John got dressed and announced as he was heading out the door that he had to be at church early for choir practice . I said, "Wait! Take the kids with you."

He said, "Are you not going to Sunday School?" I told him that I thought I would just stay home. He inquired as to why I was not going to Sunday School. I told him, "I'm just staying home today." He asked, "Are you coming for church?"

"Nope." I said, "Just consider it my 'deer hunting' day." He kissed me called me a 'sinner' and headed out the door. I went back to bed and just lay there. It was so peaceful. The birds were chirping right outside my window. No noise. No children playing well together only to suddenly turn into a WWF match. Total and complete blissful peace. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Two hours later, everybody returned. It was a good afternoon. John went hunting...of course. The kids and I had a relatively good afternoon just relaxing. Moriah and I studied her AWANA scriptures so that she could finish her 2nd book. Luke pestered as much as he possibly could just like normal. All was well.

John came home, changed, and headed off for choir practice....again! About 5 o'clock, I got up and started getting things together for evening services which is AWANA. We all were dressed and ready to go.

"Where are my keys?" I couldn't find them anywhere. The only thing that I could think of was that John had carried them off with him. I tried to call him; but like a decent person he didn't have his cell phone turned on in the church. Darn him! The first message I left near as I remember was something like..."I need my keys do you know where they are?" The second, a little more intense. By the third, "KEYS! Need 'em! NOW!" I was steamed!!! I had looked everywhere I could think of that made sense (my first mistake, thinking that anything would make sense).

We couldn't miss AWANA and everybody that we know was at the church. I found myself getting ever close to the edge (tick tick tick tick). I said, "Come on ya'll. We're walking to church." SURPRISE!!!! No complaining (right now). We walked out the front door. The air was crisp and cool but the sun was shining. It was beautiful. We only live like a 1/2 mile from the church. If the neighbors can walk to the smoke shop and get their cigarettes; we can walk to church. It was good for us, er, it was good for ME to work off the irritation and no children were harmed in the process.

We cut through the Sonic parking lot. There were several people enjoying their evening meal. We rounded the corner to the main "drag" through town. I saw a couple walking toward us on the opposite side of the road. I could tell little more about these people from this distance other than there were 2 of them. I turned to make sure my daughter was behind me; she smiled that gentle smile she has and giggled a little. I looked down at the curly headed little boy that had me by the hand. I got this overwhelming feeling of poverty. I almost cried. We have 3 vehicles, a house, warm clothes, and plenty of food; yet we were walking to town. Not walking around the track; not walking at the park; WE were walking to town. We are SO uneleivably blessed beyond words and yet, I felt poor. And, redneck!!! I felt extremely redneck! We are so blessed and yet, uh well, actually we are redneck. I just felt it a little more right then. So, there I am walking down the highway with 2 children in tow. All I needed were a couple of bags, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth, and a fly on the end of Luke's snot infested nose and an episode of Feed the Children was in the making.

As the approaching couple neared, I realized that it was the retired band director (the one before John) and his wife. I at this point no longer perceived walking as appearing impoverished but rather as a sign of how little the salary of a band director must be in this town. He said, "Are you out getting your exercise?" I responded, "Well actually, I think John made off with our keys and we are walking to church." They acted like they wanted to help in some way. I told them, "We are fine. The walk is doing us good."

We crossed the highway, cut through another parking lot, and what do you know. There is the church just one block away. I said, "See that wasn't that bad." Luke said, "My leds hut." I won't translate because I know that you understood that too.

Thankfully, John was there and he gave us a ride home after AWANA. He did NOT however have any knowledge as to the whereabouts of the keys. We got home and searched for a few hours. I got up the next morning and searched some more but to no avail. Where were they? I knew they hadn't got up and walked off....or at least I didn't think they did.

I asked Luke several times where they were and I got his standard answer. "I don't know. They must be somewhere." That's cute. But, when the taunting and harassment started it was about to get the best of me. It was obvious that he was the culprit. He knew where they were the whole time; I just know that he did. He crawled into the cabinet on the Lazy Susan and opened up the toaster oven and excitedly said, "Mom!!!! (pause) No keys in here!" This was followed by evil laughter. Keep it up Lil' Man, it's gonna be more than your leds hutting.

I decided to take a break and call the dealership to ask about a new key for the Toyota. Oh! Did I mention that the lost keys contained the only key we have to our main vehicle?! I explained my dilemma to the nice parts man. He was very helpful and encouraging. He began to spout out all kinds of information that I did NOT want to hear. I began to feel like I was making a Master Card commercial. "Computer Chip key $85, Computer to replace the old one because it can't be reprogrammed for a new key without the old one $282, Towing charge to get the keyless vehicle 30 miles to the nearest dealer probably around $100...." Ok! Where's the priceless part? That's the part I can afford!!!! I guess that would be where I piped in and told him, "You've been so helpful. Thank you very much. I think I will go look for my keys some more now." He wished me luck with a chuckle and we hung up.

I called John and asked what his plans for the evening were. He said, "I don't know. I thought I might come home and look for some keys. Is that what you had in mind?" We are so on the same page sometimes it's just scary!!!

I thoroughly cleaned several rooms during my search. Still no keys but at least half the house is in order. John arrived home. I assigned Moriah the task of taking care of Luke (which consisted of watching TV with him) because I knew that if she helped us look for keys we would just have to look there again. When I am looking for something, I trust no one until I've seen for myself (actually that applies to other things as well, like, uh, gossip!!!). I asked John to get his flashlight and search in all of the air vents because the covers are often removed and redistributed through the house so I'm sure that there are things lurking in the depths. There, everyone has their purpose set before them.

I began the nastiest part of my day...digging through the trash. Thankfully, it was only one bag. But, when I reached the bottom of the bag and no keys, I had that feeling like the 2nd place finisher on Fear Factor. "You mean, I went through all of THAT and didn't win. ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!" I returned to the inside of the house and continued my room by room search. I searched the bathrooms all the while praying that the bodacious bundle that I call 'my keys' would have been too large to be flushed. I searched the hallway closets. I searched our bedroom. I found things under the bed that I had forgotten that we owned. I found things under the bed that were no longer identifiable. Until, wouldn't you know it. There in the corner of the room behind the dresser lay....MY KEYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny, isn't it...How they are always the last place you look? I realize that even if it was the first place I looked, if I found them, it would STILL be the last place that I looked because I wouldn't need to look anymore. Duh! Technically, that was my only motivation for continuing the search. If I didn't find them, I knew they "must be somewhere!" I'm pretty sure that God was giving me a lesson in patience otherwise the "last place I looked" would NOT have been TWEN-TEE FOUR HOURS LATER!!!!!!