Aug. 25, 2008 at 3:59pm

can I get a do-over for today?

(Oy. Just, Oy.)

School's coming up soon.  I'm overjoyed at the prospect, mostly.  Except Certain Things (like, back to school shopping, the idea of getting up early, the idea of having to keep a more scheduled, less fluid existence) terrify me.

So it was that I decided, after really not wanting to get my ass out of bed, to get up.  Actually, the phone decided for me: I got a call from the honey and we had a nice random chat about nothing and a little bit about money and a little bit about more of nothing.  It was a nice, long bit of connection (for as long as Uncle Sam will allow, anyhow) and I felt peaceful, Om, lovey-dovey.   Not having a whole lot on my plate, I decided I'd tackle the shopping for back to school supplies, with a lovely handful of coupons from my Fred Meyer frequent shopper deali-o.

Usually, I heart FM.  Today was just...weird.  Maybe it was that whole late-morning shopping crowd thing, but there seemed to be an odd assortment of people wandering, with one creepy cat hanging out in the school supply aisle, looking like he'd never seen them before, smiling in awe and being all chatty-like.  Despite the fact that he looked a bit like a televangelist, I got this sort of red-alert, pedophile! -vibe, and hastened out of that aisle to the dry-erase aisle for Expo markers.  

The whole shopping trip was this circuitous, long tour of FM, and as I went to pay, I experienced the thrill of dumb-assedness, realizing I didn't have my debit card.  Back to the bank I ran, (fortunately, there's a branch of WA-MOOO there in the store, and a starbucks-- how convenient!) got my cash, and we were off. 

Sort of.

Keys?  Where are my keys?  Hello, key-eeeeys, I neeeed you.  Where are you? Pretty much, I up-ended my handbag, finding a varied assortment of gum wrappers, ballet bobby pins, a Razor scooter pin, receipts, lists, a container of mini m&ms, a skittles-flavored chap stick, my notebook, sunglasses, and wallet, a milk straw from Horizon organic milk, a fairy-band hair band, SPF 50 sunblock, a string for string games (cat's cradle, etc) a couple of pens, and a Tacoma Art Museum visitor pin.

And no keys.

Again, I checked the pockets, getting more and more frantic by the second, feeling my pits hit hell-on-Secret-Clinical-Strength.  I let quite a few F bombs drop while my kid looked up at me, bug-eyed and nervous.  I went to Customer Service, and they sort of looked at me like cows chewing on cud, wide-eyed and oblivious, "nope, no keys here."  --Same answer at the bank, the Starbucks, and the checkout lane we were in. 

More F Bombs dropped.  Out to the car, maybe, maybe, please all deific entities, I left the keys in the car, in an unlocked car, on the seat of an unlocked car that hadn't been stolen?

Nope.

Car? Present.  Keys? Absent.

And then, to backtrack the long, circuitous route, to backtrack all my, "oh look, a butterfly!" moments, to backtrack all the bloody pencils and pens and erasers and towels and toys, scanning madly, freaking out, panting in panic, dropping F bombs with heel-kicking, joyous abandon.  Again, Customer Service check, nope, F Bomb.  

Frantic call to MIL, who rescues me after hitting the house for the spare keys.  As we wait, along comes a Fire Engine, and then a Medic.  Me?  Full blown, grand mal panic/ anxiety attack?  Yah, sure, ya betcha, how'd they know? (nope, turns out a person in a mini van had some sort of medical issue.)

So then, as a bit of a kicker, as I'm just wanting my 400 dollar key back on its 100 dollar silver fob with an inspirational saying inscribed there-on, as I'm feeling gut-punched and wholly rotten, after I recheck the customer service cud-chewers, after having spent roughly four hours of my life in store listening to bad seventies easy-listening (wait, was there *good* seventies easy listening?), MIL asks kid to ask me what day it is.  I'm about to respond, "one of the stupider days of my life" when kid squeals delightedly,  "It's daddy's Birthday!!!"

Well, hell.

Just, hell.