Memories

 

It started with a simple request. “Could you hand me the car keys?” said my husband.

“No problem.” I reached across the kitchen counter to the spot where we kept the pickup keys.

They weren’t there. Still no problem. “They’re in the outside zipper compartment of my purse.”

But, they weren’t. I grabbed my secondary purse and gave it a quick search. No keys. I checked the hall table. I checked the bathroom sink. It wasn’t long before I found myself in the wacky world of “I know I put them somewhere.”

I searched high. I searched low. I surveyed every surface in the kitchen, emptied two wastepaper baskets on the floor and hunted through the rubbish.

Nothing.

I retraced my steps over the past hour, “Don’t worry. They’ll turn up,” I said to my hubby.

I started biting my nails. What had I done with the car keys?

I became compulsive. I HAD to find them. Irrationally, I began revisiting places. I hadn’t checked under the book case. All I found there was a very large dust bunny.

Next, I focused on my vehicle. Maybe they had fallen between the seat and console. Hope sprung into my heart.

But, a thorough search on and around the car seats proved fruitless.

I trudged to the house, keeping my eyes on the ground, just in case the keys had slipped from my pocket. But no keys.

Admitting defeat, I plodded up the steps, and once inside the house, took off my coat, slung it over a chair, deciding I would try to stop my search and try to relax. The keys would turn up.

I told Dick that I’d decided to stop over-thinking, that I was going to relax and let my subconscious take over.

I’d no sooner mentioned my subconscious when an image floated across my mind.

A pair of gray Ugg boots. My Ugg boots. Really? I asked my subconscious; you really expect me to look in my boots?

But a memory niggled at my brain. Yes, I had done something with my grey Ugg boots.

I ran to the closet, picked up the boots and there were my keys, inside the right boot.

The mystery was solved. I’d worn my ice-studded snow boots while unloading groceries and had placed my keys in the Uggs for safekeeping while I walked from the vehicle to the house.