The Epic Search For The Lost Keys

Five months ago I lost my car keys. In my attempts to find them I searched every corner of our apartment. I looked through every draw, checked every coat pocket, emptied every bag but found nothing.

Luckily my wife still had her car keys so started ‘borrowing’ them whenever I needed to go somewhere. She would use these opportunities to impress upon me the importance of finding my own car keys… So I would start my search again.

I interrogated our two year old daughter for information. When that failed I resorted to giving her another set of keys in the hopes that she would lead me to her secret hiding place and my missing car keys. Alas, she was innocent.

Then I became convinced that my car keys were in England. It wasn’t a complete stretch of the imagination. They had gone missing around the time we had visited my parents in London. In fact, my wife had driven us back to the boat with her own car keys. I’d not seen mine since the trip.

I asked my parents to search their home on four separate occasions over the months that followed. I asked them to check under the furniture. I asked them to search the street where we’d parked our car. I asked them to search their entire house from to bottom. Each time they found nothing and asked me to stop harassing them.

But I was convinced that my car keys had to be at my parents’ house or (at the very least) somewhere in England. Maybe I would just have to have a look for myself during our next visit.

More time passed. Life suddenly became very busy so we did not get a chance to return to England and start my search operation. I slowly started to realize that my car keys were probably lost forever and that I might have to get some new ones at some point. However, since I was not quite ready to admit that yet I continued using my wife’s car keys instead.

Five months had passed since my search began.

Then one day I was on my way out somewhere as my wife came in from cleaning the car. I asked to borrow her car keys again as I had done many times before and she responded by dangling a set of keys in front of my face. But when I tried to take them she refused to hand them over. I was puzzled. Was she trying to make a point about finding my own car keys? Did she want a kiss first (which I tried to do but was met with a head shake)? Why did she keep waving the keys and giving me that funny look?

It took me almost a minute to realize what was going on. The car keys she was holding were not hers… They were mine.

She had just found my missing car keys… in the car… under the driver’s seat. I quickly phoned my parents and apologized.