A November Story

My story is set on a Saturday morning in November 2015.  I woke up late, because that's what Saturday mornings are for.  As I laid in bed being lazy, I got a text from my coordinator at Cincinnati State.  There was a class happening right that second and a last minute sub interpreter was needed.  Could I come ASAP?  

Of course!  

Here's what you need to know to realize how urgent this seemed to me:  The class is several hours long, and the one interpreter would have been interpreting on their own for almost an hour by the time I could get there.  It's hard to interpret a college class solo for an hour!  So I very quickly got dressed, tamed my hair, grabbed a granola bar and ran out the door, skipping most of my morning routine.  The college is close to my house, so the drive was quick.  All in all, I ran into the classroom about 40 minutes after I'd been contacted.  Pretty good, I'd say.

Near the end of class I was thinking about what a fun morning this had been, how lucky that I live so close to campus, and how much I love my job.  It just seemed like a perfect morning.  Then Rob texted me and asked when I would be home.  Miciah was at a friend's house, Rob had to leave to take Elijah to a Scouting event, and Tank had just thrown up.  Great.  It was now becoming obvious from what was happening during class that we would run over time.  This meant that I wouldn't be home before Rob had to leave.  I hated the idea of having a young, sick kid at home all alone, but it would only be a few minutes.

Finally, almost half an hour after the scheduled class time, but just a smidgen before class was done, I explained about my sick kid at home, left in a hurry and ran to my car.  When I arrived I realized I didn't have my keys.  Which is totally weird because I'm really, really anal about my keys.  When I get out of my car, I make sure that 1 - I can see my keys, 2 - I put them in the pocket they go in, and 3 - I physically touch my keys.  Levels of redundancy.  It just seems smart.  So where in the world could my keys be?

I looked inside the car.  I couldn't see them.  I backtracked.  They hadn't fallen on the ground.  They weren't in the classroom.  I thought about calling Rob and having him come unlock the car door and I could drive home, since I was just sure my keys had to be inside the car.  But Rob was now 30 minutes away and at a Scout event.  Right.  I thought about asking the student or the other interpreter for a ride home and I'd worry about the car later.  By now, they'd left, though.  Dang it!  I called Rob and asked him to come.  

Then I stood near my car in the parking garage just waiting.  About half an hour later, when Rob was just minutes away from campus, a security guard walked up to me and said, "Are you Tamra?"  

"Yes!  You must have found my keys!"  

"We did."  He handed them to me.  

"Where were they?" I was curious to know.  They MUST have just fallen out of my purse.  

He gave me a funny look.  "They were in your car.  You left it running.  With the door open."

"What?!"

"We thought maybe you'd been abducted.  Usually people don't leave their car running with the door open.  We were just about to send someone to your house to see if you were there."

How do you even respond to that?!

I then spent the rest of the day wondering what kind of IDIOT leaves their car running with the door open in a parking garage!  

...

Though it does make me feel a little better that as I've (reluctantly) told people this story, it turns out that a lot of people have a similar story.  So I'm not the only idiot.

But if you haven't done something like that, now you can feel superior.  Go ahead.  I'll give you this one.