Mad Momma

I am mad.  Really mad. So mad I could cry. In fact, maybe I will.

Wednesday I came home from school and when I had to leave again my keys were missing. The keys I religiously put on the hook by the door. Every time. Without fail.

 Immediately the red flag goes up for us because we have problems with our children and keys. I have two car keys with microchips and two keyless entry devices on that ring, in addition to the keys to the office, home, and the gate to the backyard. They will cost at least $300 to replace.

What is it about your most important things that children have a kind of sixth sense to destroy, hide, or otherwise contaminate beyond salvage? (i.e.: toilet bowl glowing blue with my cell phone)

Places we have found our keys:

toy boxes

lawns

buried in the sand box

in our neighbor's yard hanging from a tree

in 5 inches of water at the bottom of a sprinkler box

in the doors of random stranger's cars

crammed into the cavity of a stuffed animal

innumerable other tiny, obscure and random places-- you get the picture

The point is somehow through the grace and mercy of a higher power we have always been able to find them, even if there was damage to our keyless entry devices. We've had to replace one already.

I sweet-talk John. He insists he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He is very believable. I resort to begging. Threatening. His mouth is like a airtight vault. I seriously begin to wonder if I am jumping to conclusions, though I know in my gut this kid is holding out.

So today I am done. I mow the lawns looking for them. I have carefully walked them at night with a flashlight to see if there is any glimmer shining back at me from the darkness. I have dug the sandbox down to the dirt. I have checked behind the washer, the freezer, ransacked the garage, dug through bushes and alerted the neighbors.

Then it comes to me. John has been unceasingly pleading with me for some toy I didn't even knew existed. Apparently one of our neighbors has one and John is desperate for it. I have my ammo.

"John, if you find momma's keys I will buy you the yellow transformer guy."

"OK!! I'll show you!"

Without a moment's hesitation he leads me directly out to the garage and to the side of the house. 

"I put it in the trash--this one." He even knows exactly which of the two trashes he put them in. Because I have mowed the lawns and thus the reeking trash is filled with grass clippings glazed with dog crap I bring myself to make the futile motions to remove the pile of composting grass/garbage from the full trash to the empty one, all the while knowing full well they are already gone. After shoveling out what I can I enlist (force)  Nathaniel to help me dump it over into the other empty trash with straining ears yearning  to hear the jingle of the hopelessly lost phantom keys.

The keys went missing Wednesday.

The trash went out on Thursday. 

Today is Saturday.

John is not getting a yellow transformer guy.