I haven’t blogged in a very long time and I keep promising my co-working and friend, Hélène, that I would share this story that never fails to brighten her day.

We all get overwhelmed and, as a result, we might forget things. Personally, I blame my stroke from a two years ago, I mean, why would I want to admit that I’m getting older and, with that, memory lapses happen. The busy multi-tasking life I’m so use to, is that becoming a thing of the past? Nahh…..maybe I just need to take more naps

As someone whose daily life revolves around completing multiple jobs at once, I often find myself bringing several bags of groceries, baskets of laundry and personal items (purse, cellphone/wallet), up my basement stairs in one trip. I mean really, why make four trips up and down the stairs when you can line everything up on a couple of stairs, stand on the next step down and move everything up a couple more stairs, then move yourself up those stairs.

I’ve always tended to do my grocery shopping early on Saturday mornings, but my schedule has been completely off lately, and I have found myself making more frequent, smaller, shopping trips after work during the week. After getting home from picking up some groceries one evening, I put them away and proceeded with my evening routine; cooking dinner, cleaning up, watching Coronation Street, making lunch for the next day, tidying up the house….all the little things that need to be done and no-one else is going to do them for me. The next morning I got up and got ready for work but when I went to head to the garage, I couldn’t find my car keys. They weren’t on the dining room table, where I normally put them. I was running late so I figured I look for them when I got home and, luckily, I have a spare car key. I headed to work and the start of another busy day. Mid-morning I decided to do a coffee run for the office. Since I only live two minutes from my office, I slipped by to see if I could find my keys. I told myself it didn’t bug me that I’d misplaced them, but it did. I completed a quick search of the house again, no luck. OK, I’ll give it a good going over when I get home from work. I mean, I live in a bungalow and had used the keys to drive home from the store less than 24-hours ago. How hard could they be to find?

After a busy day at work, I came home and did another search of the house. I looked in places I hadn’t looked before; my home office (which I haven’t spent nearly enough time in lately), my spare bedroom (where I have my make-up table). I even looked in the freezer in the basement because I’d put a few things in there before bringing the rest of the bags upstairs. Nope, my keys were not to be found.

I then decided to use the logic I give to others; Stop looking! When you are looking for something, or trying to think of something, stop. Once you aren’t focused on it, it will be right there in front of you, or pop into your head.

I started making my dinner, but those damn keys kept nagging at me. As supper cooked I started searching again….so much for following my own advice! I decided to check everywhere I’d put things from my shopping trip. I checked the cupboard where the quinoa went, no keys. I checked the pantry where I placed the pasta sauce, no keys there either. I checked the folded cloth shopping bags I’d brought my groceries home in, still no keys (I even checked the bags I hadn’t used that were still in my car trunk!). I finished preparing dinner, ate my meal, cleaned up…but was constantly going over in my head every step I’d taken the day before. It wasn’t so much the fact that I’d misplaced the keys, all of them could be replaced if needed, it was that nagging thought that I live in a three bedroom bungalow, OK, two bedrooms and a home office, but it’s a small home and there are really only so many places to put things.

As I was cleaning up the dishes from dinner, I also started making my lunch for the next day. After I made my salad, I placed it on a shelf in the fridge, and opened the drawer at the bottom to grab an apple to place with it. WAIT! What was that noise? Apples rolling in a plastic drawer should not make a noise like that. I looked into the drawer again and there…in the plastic bag from the produce section of the store……my keys. Well, at least they were nice and fresh!

How did they get there? Well, in my need to multi-task and carry everything up my stairs in one load, I often throw my wallet/phone, keys, etc. into whatever I’m bringing up the stairs whether it be a bag, laundry hamper…whatever. It appears I tossed my keys into a grocery bag but they slipped into the open bag of apples inside the grocery bag. I was so focused on getting things put away, in order to move on to the next job I needed to complete, that I didn’t notice the sound when they hit the bottom of the fridge drawer.

As I’ve said before, I have absolutely no problem laughing at myself, and the silly and strange things I might do. Sharing these stories may brighten the day of someone having a rough time. They may allow someone to laugh at themselves and the odd things they may have done. With that in mind I do have to confess….I only use photos on my blog that I’ve taken myself. Because I’d already removed the keys from the bag weeks before writing this blog, I staged the photo above. However, the morning after taking the picture, I was once again looking for my keys and not able to find them. Yes…they were still in the fridge…with the apples…still nice and fresh!