Lost & Found

It all happened at Wal-Mart, which is already one of my least favorite places on the planet. I stopped just to grab a few necessities: diapers, detergent, the usual. We were in the place for a total of 32 minutes max. I got back to the car and loaded my purchases and my children when I discovered that my keys were MIA. Since I always put my keys in one pocket and my cell phone in the other, it occurred to me that they must have fallen out of my pocket. So after searching around the car I loaded the kids back into the cart and proceeded to retrace our steps through the entire cursed store. Nothing. Surely, I thought, someone has found them and turned them in. So I went to customer service, waited in the line-that-never-ends and asked about my lost keys. Nothing. So we decided to retrace our steps again. Maybe if they fell onto the floor they got kicked under a shelf. There I was, down on my hands and knees, searching under the shelves on each aisle we had walked down. In the midst of this treasure hunt Daisy announces that she needs to use the bathroom. We race to the front of the store and I realize at this point that somehow Levi managed to remove his shoes when we went to the car. He is barefoot. This means I am trying to help Daisy use the bathroom and hold Levi (who DOES NOT want to be held) so that he does not risk his life by walking on the Wal-Mart bathroom floor barefoot. You could say the whole bathroom experience was less than pleasurable. Since we are already close, I decide to stop by customer service once again. The lady was actually extraordinarily sympathetic and announced over the PA that if anyone has found keys to bring them to customer service. I am certain this will be the ticket. The kids and I make ourselves comfortable at the Automated Application Station and wait for the good Samaritan to arrive bearing my keys. Well that lasts like two minutes. It is right smack in the middle of the kids' nap time and they are pretty much sick of being at Wal-Mart. We go buy a snack. As I am paying it dawns on me that my keys likely fell into one of my sacks. Aha! We hurry back out to the car to search again. When I can't find them in any of my sacks I proceed to tear apart the interior of my car, ripping out car seats and throwing CD's. They've got to be somewhere! Again, nothing. We load back up and head to customer service once again. By now the kind soul who found my keys will have returned them. The very nice customer service lady doesn't look so happy to see me again. She suggests I write my name and phone number down and she will call me if my keys are found (you know, 'don't call us, we'll call you.') Now I call Jeff and ask him to come get us. While we are waiting for him to arrive (since he has to drive from Nephi to Payson) the kids and I find one of those dirty benches and make ourselves comfortable. I always wondered why people would come to Wal-Mart to sit on a dirty bench, and here I find myself on one. Turns out the kids weren't so keen on sitting quietly on a dirty bench. They were more interested in trying to kill each other. We kindly remove ourselves from the wretched store to go wait in the car. My phone rings before we reach the parking lot. Hooray! It is customer service calling to say they found my keys! No. It is Jeff calling to say he can't leave work to come get us but he will see if his mom can come instead. I ask myself, Is this really my life? We get to the car and I buckle the kids in their car seats. This way they can't touch each other, or me. We open all the doors in order to avoid dying from heat stroke, but don't worry, we are all still sweating and miserable, not to mention embarrassed as all the people walk by wondering why this lady is sitting in her car with all the doors open while her kids scream at the top of their lungs from their car seats and she has her head on the steering wheel as if she is having a hangover in the middle of the afternoon. It has been two hours since I realized my keys jumped out of my pocket. My phone rings. Jeff's mom is on her way. Praise to my mother-in-law who dropped everything to bring me my spare keys. We finally got home and I was thinking how awful it was for some teenager to find my keys on the floor at Wal-Mart and not turn them in because they thought it was funny. I drove up to my nephew's football game and then later I ran to the grocery store to get some milk. When I got home from the store I set my wallet on top of my car to get Levi out of his car seat. As I set my wallet down I heard the familiar sound of small metal objects touching each other. My keys. On top of my car. Right where I had left them. Yes, they made the trip home on the freeway and everything. And yes, this is my life.