A few weeks back i didn't, they were in a very dark and smelly place indeed!
It will come as no surprise to a lot of you that I do too much. I try where humanly possible to fit as much stuff in to my day. I don't know why I have this ridiculous need to do 48 hours worth of stuff in 12 hours, and i'm fairly sure it's never going to change.
Sometimes, this works out just fine and lots gets achieved and we're all happy if not a bit tired, other times, not so.
Like the day I dropped my car and house keys down a storm drain. At tea time. With 2 children and a small baby in tow. Whilst the husband was at work. And my mobile phone was in the house. Yep, you're painting the picture in your head just right!
We'd been and done a morning activity, an afternoon activity and at 4.45 the boys asked if they could go to the 50p card shop and get a toy and to Co-op to get melon! Of course not wanting to get in the way of a fruit request (and the cheap toys make good bribes at naughty times "You've got to the count of 5 to do..... or the toy will be heading for the bin!!) my immediate action was to throw the baby in the buggy, grab my purse and keys and shepherd the boys out of the house.
Not even 5 metres from my front door I watched in slow motion as my keys slipped from the top of the buggy, waved byeeeeeeee, and dived in to the drain! The drain full of nasty smelly black water, leaves, litter and who knows what else.
Tears you may think. Nope, not from me. It came as no surprise, because that's just what I expect to happen to me. I think I even gave a little laugh and said "Yes, Of course that has just happened!" You see, keys and I have a kind of love/hate relationship. I often can't find them or lose them.
Like the time I lost my house keys when I just had Boy 1, again at tea time, and had to drive to my husband's work, but took a wrong turn and ended up driving northbound on the Motorway instead of heading to Avonmouth, with a screaming hungry baby, only to finally get to destination and find my keys in the depths of my pocket.
Or the time on our Honeymoon when I lost the keycard to our villa.
Or indeed the time on my very first holiday abroad with my school friends.
Picture the scene... a group of excitable teenagers having just arrived to their classy Tenerife Hotel room to find there were not enough beds. Off downstairs we march, myself in charge of the key (Oh God!) Complaints made and with Hotel manager in tow, we head back to the room, via the lift. And that's when it happened. The key fell out of my hand. Yes, out of my hand and down in to the lift shaft. Not just on the floor or out of the lift in to the foyer, but through the teeny tiny gap, maybe a few centimetres at most, that leads to the depths of the hotel basement. Might I also add at this point, that it wasn't just a key, the key was attached to a key fob as big as an oar. I could have given Sir Steve Redgrave a run for his money using this thing.
Now cue slightly baffled Hotel manager searching inside and outside of the lift looking for the key, whilst I try to explain where exactly it had fallen. Of course he didn't get it, because keys don't do that. unless they've fallen from my fair hands.
So you see, I wasn't in the slightest bit surprised.
Although the smartly dressed business man, who just happened to walk past and witness it was, and I hope that he thinks about the young lady with the crying children and babe in arms looking down in to the murky depths of a drain often. Because he didn't stop to help or even offer me a phone. Instead, he gave me some really sound advice... "Try ringing the council." Why thank you. I'm fairly sure that once i'd negotiated my way through the "press 1 for queries, 2 for allotments and 3 for a jam sandwich" i'd find the "dropped your keys down a drain" department and they'd head straight out to help me. At 4.50pm!
The man that did stop, however, has the biggest Karma cake coming his way. He noticed the desperate looking family with the neighbours who had fashioned a hooking device out of bamboo and coat hangers, and donned his cape, pulled his underpants over his trousers and flew in to action! Having heaved the 10 tonne lid off, he was literally lying down in the gutter and scooping out buckets full of foul "water" and sifting through it.
He found my keys!
He saved the day.
He ensured 2 little boys and a crying baby were all safely back in their home eating dinner/drinking milk and diverted the major crisis that was swiftly making its way in to my life! Because we've all been on the wrong end of a hungry person...And I had 3 of them!
My keys do not live on the buggy anymore and my eldest son feels it's his duty to always ask as we leave the door.... "Mummy, have you got your keys in your pocket?"
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