A keyed up day.

It feels as though I have spent every recent living moment that I was not actually working at my job, working at clearing out Tom’s apartment. He was rather a packrat, so this has been quite the task. This evening, after the Family Kitchen, Rebecca and I went back in to fetch the boxes I had packed up earlier in the afternoon. As we returned to the car with our load, I realized that I didn’t have my car keys. “I’ll wait here and guard, while you go up and get them,” Rebecca offered. I went back up and they were NOWHERE. We had only come in, picked up the boxes and left. Where could they be???? On the elevator going back down, I met a woman in a wheelchair, and I asked her to pray to St. Anthony to find my keys. She asked my name, no doubt so that St. A. would find the proper person’s keys, and said she would pray twice. I got to the car, and asked Rebecca if she might have them. No, she didn’t. Could she just check her pockets? Perhaps St. Anthony had put them there for us. And mirabile dictu, there they were. This was odd because normally, if I ask her to keep the keys she is a little testy about it. (She admits this.) Modern car keys are too big for fashionably tight pants and so she doesn’t like to have them in her pocket. I didn’t remember giving them to her and she didn’t remember taking them. But there they were, and there we were. Saved. Just then, saintly Suzanne, who has been helping me with the apartment, came rushing up the hill. “Praise God! There you are!” she said. Her car was locked in the garage of the apartment (it was supposed to be open till seven and it was now six-thirty,) and the only way to get to it was via the inside of the apartment building. The manageress had gone home for the day, and Rebecca and I had the only other keys. So, Suzanne was saved by the St. Anthony miracle of my lost and then found keys. Later when I finally staggered home, thrilled at the prospect of laying my aching bones in bed, I couldn’t find my house keys in my bag. I called Rachael, whom I expected to be inside, but she didn’t answer, having gone to a movie. I thought I could get the spare set from my aunt, the keeper of the emergency key, but realized with sinking heart that Rachael had borrowed it the day before when she forgot her key, and had probably not returned it yet. Nonetheless, I called my aunt, who didn’t quite understand what I was so hysterical about – I was really quite beside myself. When she finally realized that I was sobbing on my front porch because I couldn’t get into my house, she kindly drove me to Rebecca’s house to borrow her key. Now everyone has everyone else’s key, but I am happily in bed and soon to go to sleep. So, good night, my friends, and sweet dreams.