Last week, I stopped at the Crisis Pregnancy Center (a weekly event), and was getting the baby out, when I realized I had too much stuff to carry in. I had forgotten the Ergo carrier, so I didn’t have two free hands like I usually do. Just as I was wishing that I could figure out how to get it all in, a guy from the coffee shop in the same building came out to roll his car windows up (it was about to rain), and offered to help me. I gladly accepted his offer and even went and got a coffee from the shop before going to the CPC.

As I walked up the stairs, I realized that I was missing my car keys…but since I have to walk up and down a long flight of winding stairs to even get up to the CPC, I didn’t want to go back after them. I assumed that they had been left in the ignition and would be okay for a few hours.

When I left a few hours later, I got to the car, strapped the baby into his seat, and got into the car, only to realize that I still didn’t have the keys, and they weren’t in the ignition after all. I got out of the car, looked on the floorboards, on the ground beside the car, and on the seats. The keys weren’t there. I got the baby out of his seat, and looked under the car seat base, and inside his car seat. They weren’t there either.

It occurred to me that I may have left them in the coffee shop, so I took the baby with me into the shop and asked if they had seen them. None of the people in the store had seen them, but many people offered to help me look, and they even came out to the car and helped me by holding the baby while I looked underneath the car and searched inside the car again. These people really went out of their way to help. One lady even stopped at other surrounding stores and asked them if they would report if it showed up. It was really nice. Unfortunately, after searching for about an hour, they didn’t turn up.

I usually would have picked up my other children at my mom’s house by now, but since I had no way to get home, she had to take them to me. After my mom got there, she took about 30 minutes searching for the keys herself. Still, the keys didn’t show up.

The next day, James and I both went to the car to see if maybe we could find it with another search. We never did find it, even though we looked everywhere we could possibly think of! I couldn’t understand how they had just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, but somehow they did. We decided to have the keys replaced.

The frustrating part about this is that we have those keys that have the anti-theft microchip device in it, so you cannot get just any key to work- you have to get it straight from the dealership, and they are expensive!

I called the Ford dealership and they said that the car would have to be towed in so that they could program the new keys to work with the car. As if it wasn’t already expensive enough.

I called the towing company this morning and had them bring the car in. That cost me 65.00. Then, left the car at the dealership until they were ready with the keys. Three hours later, they had them ready, and my mom helped drive me to get the car. The new keys cost 103.00. (I had an extra key cut or it would have only been 75.00.)

I drove the car home, thinking I was grateful to have some keys again, and got the kids out and went back to the car to get something.

Our car is really short, and I happened to look on the top of the car and would you believe what I saw??

M.Y. K.E.Y.S.

On the top of the car.

The top.

Ugh!! Why didn’t I look there!?

And how did they make it to the Ford Dealership without falling off when the car was towed?

If that isn’t irony, I don’t know what is. It’d probably be funnier if I hadn’t just spent $168.00 for nothing!