A Miraculous Event

This is both relevant and completely irrelevant so I thought I just had to post it. I have a 'real' topic to write about today but I feel this is equally worthy of mentioning so I'll save what I was going to write for tomorrow.

This morning I did some chores including driving the yard waste trash cans up the driveway. I'm not that much of a sissy that I always drive my trash cans around. See, I have a steep driveway. Very steep. So steep that big trucks can't make it up because of the incline. The recycling and trash had not been picked up yet so it was just the yard bins. I usually wheel them up by foot but it was already 100 degrees - that's over 30C for you metric fans.

Since my neighbors hadn't filled their trash cans, I saw this as an opportunity to put my trash and recycling in their bins. I loaded a bunch of stuff in the back of the truck and went back down the driveway. Then Pattie the Wonderdoodle and I took a little break before Clint's third refrigerator (don't get me started-- apparently this one is specifically designed for wine-- wine I can't drink right now) arrived. I drove down to the bottom of the hill and drove the refrigerator up to the garage. Then there was a lull of activity and no use for the truck so I put the keys somewhere.

I realized around 3 that I couldn't remember where my keys were. I forget a lot of stuff lately, so this was normal. I knew they were around... but not certain where. I needed to go out to get a very cool wooden $30 high chair I found on craigslist but couldn't locate my keys. So I took Clint's. I drove 5 miles down the canyon to the 101 freeway (north, away from the beach) and to the freeway where I went another 7 miles and picked up the high chair. Then Pattie and I went to PetSmart because I had to pee and I wasn't about to leave her alone in the car. I thought this was genius, no? Not the reason for posting this story but certainly could be the smartest thing I've done all day.

So we stopped at PetSmart, I got P-ditty a new toy for just being herself and we went home. Mind you, we've been out for more than an hour and probably driven a good 30 miles by the end of this trip. We went up to the top of the canyon, down the other side, onto the freeway, off the freeway, back on the freeway and back up the hill. I pulled up the driveway and parked in front of the garage and looked out to see that I wasn't going to run into anything.

That's when I saw them.... on the OUTSIDE dashboard where the windshield wiper meets the body of the truck. MY KEYS were sitting right there. They had held on the entire time, nestled right in that little sweet spot. I couldn't believe what I saw! And I couldn't believe I would be so dense that I didn't see them before leaving or while driving or when I parked or parked again or.... I still have a hard time accepting that I did something like that.... but I'm also very glad that in the future, I can use my one remaining brain cell to put my keys IN the car instead of outside of it.