A Wee Moment of Gratitude on Thanksgiving

Yesterday, I noticed that my school keys were not in my purse, where they ought to be.

Well, that's not good.

I started mentally going over where I've been, when I last saw them. But I was also on my way out the door to teach some piano lessons and run a few errands, so I didn't get too stressed about it.

In the wee hours of this morning--Thanksgiving--I woke up from a weird dream, and before I could drift back to sleep, an image of my school keys--which I keep on a cute Donald Duck keychain from Disneyland--flashed through my head, and suddenly, I was wide awake.

I started to retrace the last few days in my head. I remembered taking the keys out of my purse on Saturday before driving up to see friends in Auburn. And I remember putting the keys back in my purse later that day. After that...well, hell. They could be anywhere.

So this morning, I started with the garbage can. The big, smelly one outside of our garage, that goes out on the curb every Friday. Dad helped me go through bags of trash on the just-in-case chance that I'd accidentally thrown them in the garbage.

(Believe me, I am thankful for Dad for a lot of reasons...and this morning is just one more.)

No keys in the garbage. By now, I was growing concerned. No one wants to be that person who loses the school keys. I went back to Sunday in my mind--what did I do? Movies with Sarah...but before that, I went to my storage unit, then to Raley's. Then Walgreen's.

I called Raley's--no Donald Duck in the lost and found. I decided they couldn't possibly be at Walgreen's, but I called anyway (and this is where I'm really, really happy that they're open on Thanksgiving). A manager came on the line. "What do they look like?"

"Donald Duck key chain? Three keys?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw those...hold on."

Sure enough, they had my keys.

So this explains why I went to Walgreen's at 8:00 on Thanksgiving morning (thank goodness it wasn't for illness!), and bought some battery-operated candles as my way of thanking the store for being open this morning, and for having my keys.