Lost

Last week was Crazy Hair Week at my daughter’s dance school. I rushed home from work so that I could do her hair up as wildly as possible. When I arrived at my parents’ house, she was holding her head and said her brain hurt, which is four-year-old-speak for a headache. She said she was hungry, so I gave her a snack, the “brain-hurt” passed, and I proceeded to do her hair in an enchanting samurai style.

About halfway through her class, her teacher started to take measurements of the dancers for the end-of-year dance recital. I noticed my daughter was starting to hold her head again and would occasionally get a scared look on her face. I could tell the “brain-hurt” had returned and she was trying her very best to play it off as if it didn’t; she was too embarrassed to speak up. She then got a terrified look on her face, and the teacher noticed as well. I went into the room and as soon as she saw me, she started to cry, saying her brain hurt. Her teacher quickly finished up her measurements, commented that it was so unlike her, that something must really be wrong because she never complained.

I swept her out of the class, quickly changed her shoes, and rushed to get her and her little sister ready to leave, all the while her screams were growing louder and more frantic. In the midst of all of this chaos, I realized that I couldn’t find my keys. I knew I had put them in my coat pocket, but they weren’t there. I searched my purse, my pant pockets, her dance bag, her coat pockets, and the surrounding area. My daughter was becoming inconsolable, crying that she wanted to go home, to please make her feel better. I have never lost my keys before and of all times for this to happen, it had to be in the midst of my daughter being sick and in pain - a time when we really needed to go home right away.

My dad was with us, so I asked him to bring the girls outside while I searched the lobby for my keys. It was a nice night out, so I thought the fresh air might help my daughter’s headache. I retraced my steps throughout the entire dance school, but there was no sign of them. The dance class was now being let out, and all of the mothers started helping me comb the school for the missing keys. I went back outside to check on my daughter, who by this time had become so upset that she threw up all over my dad! I went back inside and bought a cold bottle of Coke for her, thinking 1) that if hunger was the culprit, the rush of sugar might do her good; 2) that I could use the cold Coke on her forehead to help the pain; and 3) that the fact that she was allowed to drink Coke was an incredible treat for her since she normally is not allowed it, so I it might distract her from her pain and the fact that we couldn’t leave yet. It actually worked! Within a few minutes, her screams stopped and she was back to happy daughter. The Power of Coke!

By this time, the entire school had learned what was going on and became involved, tearing the rooms apart in search of the keys, but they were nowhere to be found. The only thing I could imagine had happened was perhaps the keys had dropped out of the pocket in my coat, which had been slung over a chair in the lobby, and had fallen into another dancer’s bag that was lying underneath the chair. The lobby is full of dancers’ clothes, coats, dance bags, and that was entirely possible.

Regardless, the keys were not to be found, so I called my husband to bring the spare set. He was a good 20 minutes away. When he got there, he insisted on doing what we all had already done, go through the school, ask around, check the parking lot, check our bags, all to no avail. At this point, I would have been horrified if we had found them on me or in our things after all of the trouble everyone had gone through to help us!

We eventually all arrived home, safe and sound. I threw my coat over our kitchen chair and suddenly noticed a hint of a red pen hanging out of the small chest pocket of my coat - a red pen that looked exactly like the one that is attached to all of our key chains. This small pocket is one I hadn’t even remembered I had – it’s more of a faux pocket, just for show. I pulled the pen out of the pocket, which of course was attached to a set of keys to my car.

I dangled them in disbelief in front of my husband and said, This is the extra set of keys you just gave me to drive home, right?

My husband shook his head no, in a paternal I-so-cannot-believe-you-did-this look.

So I repeated, Seriously, tell me this is the extra set of keys you just gave me to drive home, right?

Without words, he walked over to our hutch and picked up the extra set of keys that I had just used to drive home and dangled them in front of me.

With an embarrassed chuckle I said, If you breathe a word of this to anyone at that school, I will kill you!!!

He said that when he arrived at the school, he wanted to immediately re-search my clothes, purse, and pockets, but he knew that it would anger me for him to second-guess something I said I had already done. His plan was to wait until I went to bed, and then he was going to re-search all of my belongings. Well, apparently he was right to have thought that way!

In my defense, it was incredibly chaotic with my daughter screaming and crying in pain, and I truly never, ever use that pocket. I stand by my contention that the keys fell out of my usual pocket and someone stuck them in the normally unused pocket for me! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, dangit!

Regardless, I wish that were the end of my tale in regard to lost items that were never really lost this week. Just days later, I realized that a daily prescription that I always keep in the outside pocket of my purse was missing – a routine prescription that costs me a whopping $53 a pop. I searched for two days for this missing prescription – I searched places where I thought it might had fallen out of my purse - my car, the drawer in my desk at work where I keep my purse, my parking spot and driveway, all again to no avail. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I removed my wallet from the main part of my purse, and lo and behold – there was my prescription – right there in my purse.

That makes two items in less than a week that I had “lost” that were really always pretty much where they were supposed to be to begin with. I wish I could say my mind was.