My Preciousssss Hoard: Or, How I Ended Up at a Stranger's Funeral
Do you ever search around the house for keys, sunglasses, umbrellas, or the measuring tape? How about the Phillips head screwdriver?
We say things like, “They were here just yesterday! Where could they have gone?”
I’ve started hiding stashes of things that disappear in my house. I hide a bottle of window cleaner in the linen closet. When my husband washes his car, he repeatedly pilfers the bottle kept under the kitchen sink. Rarely does he return it to its home. I am pretty sure he has four bottles in the trunk of his car.
I stockpile other things, as well. I have my own measuring tape with a button that automatically retracts the tape, and a flashlight. I keep them in my desk along with a Phillips head screwdriver and an Allen wrench. The “good scissors” dangle from my craft supplies pegboard. There is an extra small umbrella that hides in the glove box of my car and several reusable grocery bags lurk in the corner of the trunk.
I start to glitch when any of my precioussssss private stash goes missing. It can only mean one thing: these items have been swallowed by the basement vortex, nestled between the luggage and the Christmas decorations.
Then, there is the problem of losing belongings all by myself—no one else to blame. For me, it is usually eyeglasses, keys, and my phone.
Have you ever asked someone to call your phone because you can’t find it? Sure you have, haven’t you? But, I keep my phone on silent when I am working and forget to turn it back on again when I am home, so no amount of calling will help me find it. My husband inevitably remarks, “That’s why you should keep your ringer on!”
Have you ever lost your eyeglasses? Who hasn’t? But I have been known to search around the house for my readers and have invited others to join the search party, only to be informed that I had hooked them into my collar and didn’t feel them swinging against my chest.
Finally, the keys. If you’re wondering how I ended up at a stranger’s funeral, this is where the story begins. I have misplaced my keys tens, maybe hundreds of times. But, my two most favorite stories make me laugh out loud whenever I think about them, so I’m going to share them with you. I might have written about one a while back, but it’s worth retelling. Then, there’s the second bonus keys story.
I once left my keys (both house and car) in the bag I use for my weekend art class. On a brutally cold, snowy Monday morning, I grabbed my work bag, locked the front door behind me, and walked out to the car. When it didn’t automatically beep, I knew my key fob was missing. It was blustery and freezing. I stood outside the door frantically searching my work bag for the house key, eventually emptying the entire contents onto the front steps. No key. As it grew colder, the truth hit me: I could perfectly visualize myself slipping the keys into the pocket of my art bag, which was currently sitting inside my office/art studio.
Now what? Tony was at work half an hour away. My cats, Shiva and Shakti, were not going to open the door for me. Shiva is actually pretty great at opening doors with latches, but without opposable thumbs, he was useless in this instance. Thankfully, I had my phone and called Tony. He said he’d leave right away but warned it would take some time. Rather than let my feet freeze to the concrete, I started walking around the neighborhood just to keep from turning into an ice sculpture.
That was when I noticed the funeral home down the street. As terrible as it sounds, I found myself praying that someone had passed away and was having a viewing. Walking closer, I saw a beautifully packed parking lot. I slipped inside the building and texted Tony that I was hiding out at the funeral home—honestly, very little of what I do surprises him these days. I stood in the vestibule, watching the mourners arrive. I briefly considered offering a solemn “I’m sorry for your loss” to everyone who walked in, but thought better of it and kept my mouth shut. Then I considered actually going into the service to pay my respects to the deceased. But what if someone asked how I knew Mr. Smith? What could I say? “Oh, we’re just meeting now”? Instead, I pulled out my phone, stayed in the vestibule, and scrolled through social media to look busy until Tony pulled up in his car like my knight with a working heater and house keys.
My second favorite “lost keys” story is this:
Once again, I walked out to my car one morning…maybe the problem is going to work?
Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as bitterly cold as the funeral home debacle. I had a bag of garbage in the passenger seat that I planned to sling into the neighborhood dumpster on my way to work. I hopped in, started her up, and drove the short distance over to the trash bins. I grabbed the bag, stepped out, and inadvertently locked all four car doors as I slammed the passenger door shut. The car was idling. This was back in the day before manufacturers programmed cars so you couldn’t lock them while the engine was running. (That was a brilliant new feature.) So there I stood: the car was humming, and my pocketbook containing my house keys and my phone were safely trapped inside.
Now what? I walked back down the street to my neighbor’s house and knocked on her door at 7:00 AM sharp. She answered in her bathrobe, looking a tiny bit rumpled as if she had literally just leapt out of bed. After offering my most profuse apologies, I asked if I could use her landline, to which she happily agreed. Once again, I had to call poor Tony. He amicably agreed to turn around but gently suggested I call AAA instead. They could bring a Slim Jim tool to pop the door open, saving him a thirty-minute drive home.
And that is exactly what I did from my neighbor’s kitchen. She kindly offered me a cup of coffee, which I cheerfully accepted while waiting for the truck. The actual process of opening the lock took the technician about three and a half minutes—but the bill was about fifty times the amount of time it took him to break in.
Between crashing strangers' viewings, waking up neighbors at the crack of dawn, and paying premium prices for a three-minute Slim Jim operation, I’ve come to accept that tracking down my belongings is a full-time job. But as long as my glasses stay firmly on top of my head and my phone remains stubbornly on silent, I know I’ll keep providing Tony with plenty of reasons to be entertained by my unintentional antics. I suppose a little domestic entertainment keeps life interesting. Now, I'm off to pour a cup of coffee and figure out where I set down my pen.
