Protection for Fools and Babies

What do you call that moment when you realize you’ve made a silly mistake?

I’m not talking about traffic accidents and such, rather things of the mundane variety. Like when you receive an email from a group of coworkers and you reply to one friend while poking fun at the sender. Just as your finger has grazed the “send” button, you realize that you’ve replied to all instead of forwarding to only your friend. DOH!  Or the moment that you get all your groceries into the car and realize that you’ve forgotten the single most important item on your shopping list?   How about closing the car or house door, and even as your hand is still on the handle, you realize that your keys are inside?  Do you have a name for those moments?  They should have a name.

I have those moments often, and I thought I’d had one the other day.  Except it wasn’t.  No my friends, this was even bigger, so it seemed worthy of a share. Let me paint the pic for you. I work in an office building that happens to be on the campus of a large hospital. The employee lot that I park in is about 1/2 mile from my building and it’s situated directly next to a drug treatment clinic for heroin addicts.  On average, 2 cars are vandalized each month, so we get emails and memos warning employees not to leave iPods, EZ passes and valuable in plain sight.  Anyway, that 1/2 mile is a great little workout when the weather is nice, annoying as hell when it’s not.

Yesterday, I excitedly skipped out the door right at quitting time.  I almost NEVER leave on time. The weather was a beautiful 55 degrees and I had a big, cheesy grin on my face. I usually hit my car clicker about halfway there so that the auto start will engage and I can pull off as soon as I hop in. But remember, it’s 55 degrees. No real need to warm the car, ya know? So, ya girl waits until I get about 20 yards from the truck to rummage through my oversized shoulder bag for keys. Amid the receipts, napkins, goldfish crackers and pennies, I can’t find my dang keys. I prop my bag on the rear bumper and take out the big items like bottle of water, iPod, wallet, etc to continue searching. Dang, no keys. What the what? I proceed to dump the entire bag on the ground next to my SUV, cussing myself for even carrying so much crap and my keys are nowhere to be found.

Ugh!  I’ve been in this moment before about a year ago and my keys were back in my office.  Yup, I’d walked into the office with them in my hand and tossed them there upon  arrival.  Shaking my head at the memory, mumbling under my breath about carrying such a big azz pocketbook and shoulder bag, I started the 1/2 mile walk BACK to my office.

Once in my office, I tear my desk APART, drawers and all.  No keys.  **deep sigh**  The only logical conclusion that I can draw is that I must have dropped them on one of my walks between the lot and the building.  After sipping some water, ditching my shoulder bag for another day, I mount up for the walk BACK to the parking lot.  Along the way, I’m walking super slow and scanning the ground for my key ring.  Nothing.

I get to the truck and I’m pretty close to defeat at this point.  Where on earth could my keys be???  I sat on the rear bumper of the truck and pulled out my cell phone to call MrTDJ.  I feel like an idiot.  I’m in Baltimore, and the spare key is in DC.  And with traffic, who knows…….  Wait!  That’s odd.  Just as I was about to dial, it occurred to me that the alarm didn’t sound when I sat on the bumper.  MrTDJ has fancy schmancy alarms and whistles on the truck.  I sat there for a second trying to wrap my mind around the inconsistencies.

Why didn’t the alarm go off?? 

Oh no, I must have never armed it.

Wait, did I even take the keys out of the car?

I sometimes put them on the seat as I gather my bags and stuff

I walk around to the driver’s door and test the handle.  It flies open with ease.  Damn.  Never locked it.  I glance at the seat expecting to see the keys.  Not there.  Sh*t.   Then, I see this:

I almost cussed my damn self out! 

Really MrsTDJ?  You left the keys IN THE IGNITION???  In the ignition of an SVU, next to the drug treatment facility, in the parking lot that’s known for break ins?  In the ignition of pretty nice Chevy Avalanche with MrTDJ’s very stupid expensive rims and a very stupid expensive geek gadget radio?

There wasn’t much I could do at that point except shake my head, bust out laughing and praise God for protecting fools and babies.  I need more sleep!