Keys (Profanity Alert)

So the first thing you should know about me is that I have a streak of paranoia.

For good reason. I can lose anything, and I can do it in the blink of an eye.
Like this one time, at band camp in residence, first year university. I went off to class--I still did that in first year, I hadn't discovered the Internet yet--only to realize halfway there that I had forgotten a required textbook. No idea why it was required...the prof was just going to read it aloud to us, and I could read it myself a hell of a lot faster in my dorm room. But again: first year. I had a lot to learn about so-called "higher" education.
I digress.
So I went back to my dorm room, unlocked my door, opened it up, threw my keys on my bed, retrieved the textbook, and then spent twenty minutes looking for the keys I HAD JUST HAD IN MY DAMN HAND. By the time I found them, class was half over and I said screw it.

I've lost all manner of things. Only one wallet, surprisingly, but I have lost loose bills--once, a fifty. I've lost a blue sweater of Eva's, last seen going into the washing machine (I think); it never came out. The blue sweater is legendary around this joint at this point.  It's the most beautiful sweater that ever was, the softest, silkiest, bluest sweater imaginable...and I lost it.

Which brings me to today.

I worked 8-5 today, my third day back since holidays, and I'm still not quite up to speed, and the less said about that the better. Eva's at her parents' and has been for some time, and so I check my pockets at least three times before I lock the door to the house. Yes, the keys are in there. Yes, I have the keys. I HAVE THE KEYS, I CAN LOCK THE DOOR. Click. Then I reach into my pocket once more for good measure, half expecting the keys I had just merrily jingled to transmogrify into some pocket lint or something.
I'm touching my pocket often enough on the way to work that people probably think I'm some kind of pervert, but all I'm really doing is jingling those keys and reciting landmarks. Had the keys here. Had the keys there. And now I'm at work, and yes, I have my keys.


One of those keys is for my locker. And so we go through the ritual again, because locking my house keys in my locker would be bad, terrible, unimaginable, with Eva gone. So I withdraw the keys from my pocket, unlock the locker, immediately put the keys back in the pocket, and withdraw the pen, the box cutter, the nametag...all the paraphernalia I need. Grab everything from the locker, check check fondle yup, keys are in my pocket, then close and lock the locker. And check again. Keys are still keys, everything's good.


You get the idea.

Everything went off without a hitch this morning, The day was...a day. The less said about that the better. Except for one thing. Towards the end of my day, I had to throw out some out-of-code product. I had to get the store manager to open the trash compactor, which is secured at all times with a giant keyed padlock. (If you're wondering why a store would bother to lock a trash compactor, when the bin it gives on is inaccessible from anywhere else...well, I always used to wonder that, too. Until I found out that the night crew at one particular store (not my current chain) didn't feel like working very hard one night, so they just pitched everything they didn't want to put on the shelf. I kid you not.)

So the store manager gives me his keys, rather than coming to open the thing himself. A very small measure of trust, I suppose, but I'll bask in it for a quarter of a second or so anyway. I throw out my product, re-lock the compactor, and give him his keys back--or at least, I thought I did.

Half an hour later, it's time to go home. As I'm walking up the stairs to the change room and freedom, I withdraw my keys from my pocket and...they're not my keys, they're his. Odd. I could have sworn I returned those. No matter. Clomp clomp clomp back down the stairs and across the store to his office, where I put them on his desk. Then back upstairs and...where are my keys? I don't have my keys!

You, Dear Reader, are intelligent and perceptive and have no doubt figured out what happened. I am a dumbass and thick as a brick and all I can think is I locked my fucking keys in my locker, oh fuck I'm fucked fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck-a-la FUCK.

After scouring every possible surface in the changeroom, checking every pocket I could find and trying to make a few new ones, I gave up, went back to the manager's office, and told him I needed a hacksaw. "I think I've locked my keys in my locker", I said aloud, thinking I hope they're in there, because if they're not I have NO IDEA WHERE THEY COULD POSSIBLY BE.
"I'll go you one better", he says. "I have bolt cutters here somewhere." He eventually found them. giant ones that looked lethal. I went up and attacked my locker.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Twenty minutes later, working in shifts with a colleague, I'd barely managed to dent the lock, thanks to four things working in concert against me. The first was that the bolt cutters were old and dull. The second was that my lock was tough. The third was that it had a very small "u", so getting purchase was difficult. And the fourth, of course, was the capricious demon-thing that haunts my life at times like these, sitting just out of reach over my left shoulder and cackling its fool head off.

The store manager came in to check on my progress and have a go himself. Nothing was working. He went to get a hammer and chisel. As he was leaving, I said "I hope to Christ they're in there. I don't hear them."
He got down to his office and saw his keys on his desk. Odd, he thought. I could have sworn I put those in my pocket when Ken returned them to m-
And he reached into his pocket and pulled out my keys.

I think I was happier to get out of that store tonight, keys in hand, than I was two weeks ago when my holidays started. Scratch that think. I KNOW I was.