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Saturday, November 18, 2006

OMG Moments

Yesterday morning, just like I always do, I locked the door between my utility room and the garage, turned off the light, stepped out into the garage and pulled the door shut behind me. I walked to the driver's door and reached into my jacket pocket for my car keys. They weren't there.

I think I was stunned immobile for a split second. I always drop my keys in my jacket pocket. I have another split second where I realize the door to my house is locked. I try desperately to remember if, for some odd reason, I'd put the keys on my counter in the utility room or somewhere else. Nothing is coming to me. I dig deeper into the pocket, sure I must just be missing the keys. It's a deep pocket.

Nada.

Now panic starts to set in. OMG, my parents are out of town! They have my spare set of keys, but my keys to their house are on the same key chain as my house keys and my car keys. It's not like I can just call them on the cell phone and say, "Help!"

I frantically begin searching my purse. Maybe I stuck them in there for some strange reason. I try to remember the last time I had my keys. Thursday afternoon when I unlocked the door to my house. After that? Who knows?

They're not in my purse. I begin thinking of what the heck I'm going to do because OMG, I can't find my keys.

I don't know what prompted me to check my left jacket pocket. I'm right-handed, and while I do a lot of things with my left hand that most righties don't do, using my keys aren't one of them. The panic immediately deflated as my fingers touched metal.

I have absolutely no idea why I put my keys in the other pocket, but I was so happy I had. From now on, though, when I step out of the house, I'm going to have my keys in my hand. That was too big a scare to go through again. And the thing is, if my parents had been home, it wouldn't have been that big a deal, but they weren't.

Somehow, despite this panic, I did manage to make it to the day job on time. I had to punch in the hangars because the damn train messed up traffic back to the freeway and only one elevator was running, but all that matters is that 5:59 badge swipe.