*%&!#*!*

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you know how...er...disorganized I am. There. I said it. I admit it.

Hi, my name’s Randy. I’m a disorganizaholic.

We who are thus afflicted have feeble ways with which to combat the worst of the side effects. For example, I keep my car keys where they belong—in the car. That way, no muss/no fuss, when I need them (namely, when I’m about to DRIVE) they’re close at hand.

Yesterday, for some unexplainable (inexplicable?) reason, I arrived home, got out of the car, went to the mailbox, and noticed I still had the keys in my hand. Naturally, being both disorganized AND lazy, do I walk the five or six steps back to the car and toss them inside? Nope. I get the mail, drop it on top of the trash can in my garage (where IT belongs, by the way), proceed inside and set my car keys on the counter in the bathroom off my bedroom.

A fine plan, I think. After all, how can I miss them when I’m doing my hair in the morning?

Flash forward.

I finish my hair, spy the keys, and pat myself on the back. How I love it when a plan comes together!

Five minutes later, five minutes later, I go to start the car.

No keys.

No FRIGGIN’ keys.

They’re not in my purse, they didn’t fall between the seats, they’re no longer in the bathroom…in fact, they are NO WHERE. I truly believe they’ve disappeared into some odd cosmic black hole. I trace my last few minutes in the house. Hair in bathroom, shoes in closet, pick up purse off bed, sort through mail on nightstand, go downstairs, get lunch, stop in garage, sift through more mail (throwing some away). I take the end of a mop and probe through the trash in the garbage can. Euw. No keys.

I’m about to cry.

By now, sweat is streaking down my face from running up and down the stairs, so I change into a T-shirt.

I call my office to let them know why I’m late. They laugh.

My rational brain kicks in. Obviously, I’m forgetting a crucial step in the route I keep re-tracing. I start eliminating rooms. Definitely didn’t go in the extra bedroom. Definitely didn’t go in the powder room downstairs. I try the freezer since that’s where I got my lunch. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

I’m starting to think how much it’ll cost to have a key made. I’m starting to think how stupid I am.

The gardeners wonder why I keep opening and shutting the garage door.

Okay, so of course I finally found the suckers. And I’m afraid the ending is neither dramatic or aha-inducing.

The one place I KNEW I hadn’t been all morning was the laundry room and adjoining bathroom. Yeah, right.

As soon as I saw the pink scarf on the washing machine, I remembered. I’d plucked it off the kitchen table to see how it went with the sweater I was no longer wearing and zipped into the bathroom to use the mirror.

There were the keys. Right next to the sweater.

An hour of my life lost forever.

Now, would you like to hear how at noon I tripped on the way back from the microwave? Would you like me to describe what Lean Cuisine Chicken Alfredo looks like on blue carpeting?

Didn’t think so.

And how’s YOUR day going?