The Keys That Wouldn't Work

THE KEYS THAT WOULDN'T WORK

It was December 1997, and our household consisted of Ray, Frank, and Jeremy who were still in high school, Sam and Anthony who were home from college on Christmas break, and Lisa who had already graduated from college and was living at home and working and preparing for her upcoming wedding to George.

It was my day off from school and Lisa had asked if I would take her to work because George was planning to pick her up after work, and she didn't want to leave her car there. I agreed, and when it was time to leave I went out to my Honda Prelude ahead of Lisa to get it started and warmed up. However, for some unexplainable reason, my key would NOT turn in the ignition. I made sure the steering wheel wasn't in the locked position, but that did not help. I tried and tried, all to no avail. Just then Gary Zimmerman, my stepmother's son who was installing replacement windows in our house, arrived. I told him of my dilemma. He decided that maybe the ignition needed to be sprayed with some WD-40 oil, which he did. He got in and tried that key, but it wouldn't work for him either. Meanwhile Lisa had called the COBYS Group Home, where she worked, to tell them she'd be late, and she also had decided that we would just use her car instead, except that she couldn't find her keys anywhere. I called Dick to see if he had any suggestions to try, but he didn't. He did say that if Anthony's car was there we should just use it.

That seemed to be the only solution. Anthony was still sleeping, but I knew I had a key for his VW Golf on my ring, so I got into his car and tried the key, and it wouldn't work either!! I was beginning to feel like there was some kind of curse on our keys, when I looked a little closer at the keys on my key ring. Lisa and Gary were standing outside the car when I sheepishly looked up and said, "These aren't even my keys!" I held up the key ring and Lisa exclaimed, "Those are MY keys that I was looking for!"

I felt like a complete idiot, but we just laughed and laughed and laughed all the way to COBYS. We figured out how it had happened. My keys were safely in my purse the entire time. Lisa had laid her keys on the kitchen table and I had mindlessly picked them up, thinking they were mine. There actually were many similarities: her car was a Honda CRX, so we each had a black Honda key on our rings; we also each had a little Weis Markets swipe card on our rings; she also had a big key on hers that resembled the one for Anthony's car; and of course, we each had an identical house key. So I really wasn't that much of an idiot, was I?? But knowing Gary, he probably had more than a few chuckles over it as he worked on our windows that day.