Mailboxes and Eventualities

I live in a community with a centralized mail facility. Residents are issued mailboxes, keys that open them, and usually that system works out fine.

Usually.

For me, it’s inconvenient and annoying. While I appreciate the fact that my incoming correspondence, endless supply of catalogs, and host of windowed envelopes is safeguarded and secure, it lacks a certain – free will access that I really enjoy.

My point is, my will, my key, and my mailbox are seldom in sync. I most often think of retrieving my mail when I walk past the building that houses the rows upon rows of postal receptacles. I never have my key with me then.

Then when I do remember to carry my key in the car with me I forget to stop and check the mail. You get the idea.

Some time over the past four years I’ve lost one of the two keys we were issued when we moved in. I say I lost, an interesting pronoun since you’ll note WE were issued TWO keys. I maintain it is equally possible if not probable that the other human in the household with access to it lost it. Or we can always blame Rex.

That left me with just the one key that I never have when I need it. You would have thought that at some point I might have come up with a creative solution – like making multiple duplicates to keep in the car, store in an offsite storage facility, leave with a trusted friend, wear around my neck, just so when the only known key in the entire universe went missing I’d have a backup.

You’d have thought.

Well the solitary, mate-less key disappeared -- as one would expect it would – eventually. Whenever you cover the same mental ground over and over: “I really should make a copy of this key since it is the only one we have…” it’s a clear indication of two things.

- First, you must immediately stop what you are doing and attend to whatever that still, small voice is directing you to do, because

- whatever you don’t want to happen will happen.

Count on it.

I have spent more time than I even want to admit searching for that blasted key. I’ve looked places it could not be, would not be, would not fit it or have landed in. I’ve searched and researched where I’ve already searched for it. I got up at least ten times last night checking “just one more place.’

It’s times like these, when I’ve misplaced something, my husband becomes scarce. He knows by now no one will have a moment’s rest until the missing item is found. His last peaceful day was back in the ‘80s when I lost a hamburger bun. It’s a long story.

He’s learned it is wiser to leave the premises than offering suggestions for finding the lost article. “Where did you leave it?” “When did you have it last?” These are not conducive to harmony in the homeplace.

Fortunately, the Knight of the United States Postal Service – the one I’ve laid-in-wait-for since dawn – the guy with the MASTER key that opens ALL mailboxes, possibly in the entire GALAXY, had found my errant metallic opener and secured it inside my mailbox. Not that I could ever have retrieved it on my own, but he knew it would be safe from me – the loser of all things.

I really, really, really need to make a point of having duplicates made.

Really.