Always Have a Spare Key or Why I Should Not Travel

It’s been over a week since I updated here which is very unlike me. I have been very tired from my trip and stressed out so I just haven’t been able to get it together. I like my content to be high-quality, interesting and non-derivative. I don’t usually write long-rambling posts about nothing. I’m really good at it, but I try my very best to keep those off this blog and keep my posts focused and solution-based. However, for posterity I have to tell the story of my trip home from Washington D.C. last week.

Our flight (I was travelling with a coworker, I will call her Schmoody to protect her innocence) was scheduled to fly out of Ronald Reagan International Airport at 5:35. When we checked in, they said the flight was about an hour late so we wouldn’t be boarding until almost six. We had gotten there very early because we figured the security stuff at a D.C. airport (technically Virginia, but still) might be crazier than here in Seattle. Nope. Aside from having to show our boarding passes a few extra times, getting through was a cinch.

Before it was even 4 PM I was seated in the waiting area for our plane, watching Scott McClellan talk about his new book. In case you haven’t heard: no, he isn’t sorry to the American public because he didn’t know he was spreading lies at the time and, no, he didn’t write the book for the money, he did it because it needed to be written. Just so you know.

Anyway, so I’m hanging out, reading Middlesex (excellent book if you like history and family epics. I highly recommend it) and trying not to do the math about how late I’ll be getting home (if the plane leaves at 6 here, then it’s 3 in Seattle so if we land at midnight Eastern time it will be nine in Seattle plus the forty-five minute drive from the airport so that’s…oh nevermind!). Schmoody had gone to do some souvenir shopping and by the time she showed up it looked like our flight wasn’t going anywhere until nearly seven Eastern time. Excellent.

Let me back up a bit. We had a super shuttle pick us up at the Hotel Palomar at 2:30 PM. While we waited in the lobby, I changed my mind about which bag I was going to check and which bag I was going to bring. There was plenty of time so I switched up a bunch of stuff from one bag to the other so I was checking the larger, heavier bag, but still carrying my laptop with me.

Fast forward a bit to checking our bags. I didn’t want to check my keys in case my luggage was lost. You see, my key ring has the one and only key in existence for my car (1987 VW Rabbit) and Keri has my spare house key, but she was in Canada for the weekend. I rifled quickly through both bags, but couldn’t find them so I figured I’d just sort it out in Seattle. No big.

The flight was really long and I was tired, but couldn’t seem to fall asleep. The entire flight felt like someone was bouncing a single drop of water off my forehead for six hours. I was in a middle seat, but luckily the women flanking me were nice and clean. And, Thank God, they weren’t chatty. We all read and barely spoke a word to one another. Lovely.

When we got to Seattle, I went through my bags again – including the one I’d checked – and that’s when I started to panic. My keys were nowhere. Our van came and we were taken to Schmoody’s car at the paid lot. There I ransacked my bags once more – even my suitcase where I knew I hadn’t put my keys – but they really weren’t there. Finally, Schmoody called the Hotel Palomar and guess what? I’d left them on that damn bench in the lobby. Lucky for me, someone had turned them in and they could have them to me by Tuesday.

The problem? I live fifteen minutes from work, I had to stop at work, it was midnight and Schmoody was very anxious to get home. She did agree to stop at work and take me home. There were still two problems: 1. I didn’t have a way to get into my house and 2. I had a doctors appointment Monday that I could not miss. First things first, though.

I knew that Keri’s son was able (at our request of course!) to break into my house by doing something crafty with the downstairs window and then having Keri basically throw him through it. The window is about eye-level for me so I knew that I needed a chair. I found one under the deck and stood on it. It started cracking because it was a cheap plastic chair that had been out in bad weather for about two years, but I stuck with it. Schmoody had pulled the car so that her headlights shone on the window so I could see what I was doing.

I removed the screen and tried to open the window. It opened about two inches and then stuck because of the lock inside. I tried everything to get the damn thing open and just when I was about to find a rock and break it, I lifted it just the right way and it slid over. Now all I had to do was somehow get through it. Even on the chair, it barely came to my waste. I’m not in the best of shape, to say the least and have never been particularly graceful or much of a climber. However, at this point pure adrenaline took over.

You see, there was about two and a half foot of house between me and my … well … my house. I am a homebody. I love my house, my cats, my own bed and I couldn’t even imagine having to spend one more night outside of this place. I grabbed the edge of the window and the wall, hiked my foot up over the windowsill and suddenly I was half-in half-out of my house. I put one hand on the top of a TV and the other on the window ledge and lowered myself into the basement bedroom. I had done it!!!

I ran out to get my bags and thank Schmoody for the ride. Then I started trying to figure out the next step: transportation.

What I ended up doing was taking a cab the next day to do some grocery shopping. My dad tried to find a key for my car, but couldn’t. He actually got an entire coffee can full of VW keys, drove to where my car was parked and tried each and every key to see if he could find a match. On a Sunday morning! Now that is a real dad. I thanked him even though no match was found, talk about heroic. Keri called on Sunday and I told her what had happened. She immediately said, “Don’t worry, you can borrow my car tomorrow.”

So everything turned out okay. Cabbing it was a bit expensive, but I made my doctor appointment and my keys arrived via Fedex overnight on Tuesday morning. It was an incredibly stressful experience, but it taught me an important lesson: always always keep spare keys available. I know I will be making a spare key to my car immediately. As soon as I remember to when I’m out and about…

Thus ends my tale of woe. The Online Portfolios Series will continue on Monday and hopefully posting in general will be back on track this week.