Are You The Keymaster?

I lost my keys today. It was a considerable tragedy. I've been worried about it for the last 14 hours or so.

Because these weren't my house/car keys. I have a backup car key, and no one ever locks the door to this apartment.

Seriously. We don't live in a really good neighborhood or anything. If Palms gives off any kind of vibe at all, it's kind of a sketchy vibe. But there are young children screaming and cavorting around in the driveway of my apartment, basically, 24-7. There is no worse place to consider commiting any sort of home invasion-type crime, unless you like dealing with upwards of 25 screaming child hostages with mediocre English comprehension and severe ADHD.

So, anyway, I wouldn't be worried about my house/car keys so much. But these were my store keys. As in, every key to every door in the DVD store at which I work. (That would be Laser Blazer, which coincidentally happens to also be the absolute best DVD store in Los Angeles!)

The weird thing is, I put the keys in the exact same place every day when I get home from work. There's this little table by one of the couches in our living room, which also houses a new fax machine and a surround-sound speaker that rarely gets used because I keep the DVD player in my room. I put the keys there, both because it makes them easy to remember in the morning and because I never have to think about where my keys are.

"Where are my keys? Oh, yeah, the little table by the door!"

That way, I only forget the movies I was going to return or the check I need to cash or the mail I was going to send or to put on pants without large Dr. Pepper stains on them. But never my keys!

But today, on my way out the door, the keys simply weren't there. No immediately recognizable plastic yellow belt loop (never used by me), the last-remaining relic of the previous guy who held my job. After about 10 minutes of sheer and utter panic, during which random objects were hurled about and random obscenities uttered, I actually been to look in earnest around the room.

But trying to find any small item amidst the stunning amount of detritus and debris in my living room? You'd have more luck finding oil in there than a small key ring. Seriously, my keys had more potential hiding spots in my living room than Osama along the Pakistani border, okay, people?

(Wow, I do those sort of analogy jokes all the time, but I really feel like I've started genuinely ripping off Dennis Miller...Seriously, read that last sentence in a Dennis Miller voice. And pretend the last word is "babe" instead of "people." Okay, now pretend the content isn't about my store keys, but shrill mindless right-wing propaganda. The similarities are uncanny.)

I had no luck before it was time to leave for work. I ended up being about 10 minutes late without having found the keys. By sheer luck, today I opened the store along with another manager, who also has keys, so it wasn't a big deal. But if I hadn't found them tonight, I'd have to go in tomorrow with my hat in my hands (and I don't even wear a hat), explaining that the keys were lost to the ages.

Fortunately, they just turned up. I noticed while going to the fridge for a Coke that there was this piece of paper on the ground next to one of the couches. You know how sometimes, if you're looking straight down at something flat like a piece of paper, it can appear level to the ground even if it's raised a bit?

Well, I don't know if you have a lot of paper on the floor where you live, but I do, and trust me...it happens. Anyway, during my earlier scan of this area for the keys, I had thought the paper was flat against the ground. But it wasn't! And what did the paper conceal? Why, a set of Laser Blazer keys!

Success! In my excitement, I let out a peculiar sort of yelp, the sort of sound I might have made if someone suddenly shoved a digit into my rectum. (A UFIA in the parlance of our times). I ran in my roommate Nathan's room to tell him. He was considerably less enthusiastic.

So, thank goodness, all is once more right with the world, I have my keys back, and no scofflaws will be making off with our Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers box sets in the still of the night. Pfew.