My Purse Ate My Keys

I sat in my car and cried this morning. Everything fell apart at 9:07 a.m., to be exact.My purse ate my belongings overnight, I discovered, as I clamored in my car, cell phone in one hand, coffee sloshing out of my mug in the other, and purse and lap top bag hanging off my shoulder and angrily pulling on my hair. I've always said since becoming a mom, the most stressful part of my day is getting us all out of the house in the morning.

Among the casualties devoured by my excessively large vegan leather handbag is my electric blue cell phone charging cord and my keys, the two items I desperately need as I am already running late and my cell phone battery is beyond dead. I distinctly remember placing both items inside my bag before I got out of my car last night. So what happened between then and now?

I try to unscramble my brain and retrace my steps. Maybe they fell out somewhere between the car and my bedroom. I lob my bags into the floorboard and climb back out of the car. I walk around the perimeter of the car. I open the passenger door and check there. Nothing.

A five-minute search of my home produces nothing. So I head back out to recheck the car and my purse. Then back in to check the pockets of the coat and pants I wore yesterday. Then back out to recheck the car and my purse. Then back in to check the trashcan. Why would I throw those items away? I can't answer that, but I can tell you I once put cheese in the china cabinet so....

And still nothing. I'm starting to sweat. It's now 9:19 and 27 degrees outside and I find myself in the midst of a mad sweat. And that's when I sit back inside my car and cry.

I can handle all sorts of near-disasters. I can juggle multiple projects, kid activities, big work deadlines, doctor appointments, all of it. But not without my phone which contains the schedule of life. And I can't go anywhere without my keys. So this is why I'm crying. Sometimes being a big girl and handling all the big things leaves you too frazzled to not freak out when a little thing like missing keys and a deader-than-a-doorknob phone are thrust into an already ridonkulous schedule.

I contemplate calling my husband and crying to him. That fixes lots of problems like big bugs that need to be dead.... shoes that need to be bought.... but what could he do about this? No, this one I have to fix myself. So I pick up my purse and begin shaking it.

I know those keys are in there somewhere. They have to be.

Wait. I think I hear them. Or is that the $6.34 in change floating around on the bottom of my bag? But no matter how much I dig through my purse. No matter how much I take out of it. There are still no keys. Still no electric blue charging cord.

That's it. The purse ate them. That's the only possible answer for this madness. That's what I get for buying a vegan leather bag. It's hungry.

Just when I'm this close to giving up and calling it a day and retreating back into the house to cry under a blanket, I see my keys. In my purse. Wait. What?!  I looked there 32 times already. I snatch up the bag and discover I did, in fact, put both my keys and my electric blue phone cord inside my purse last night. But instead of stashing them into the abyss that is the main compartment of my excessively large vegan leather handbag, I stashed them in a tiny zippered compartment on the outside and that last angry yank was just enough to open the zippered compartment and unearth my keys.

I smile with satisfaction. There they were. In my purse, Just like I thought.

I knew I wasn't cracking up. Today, anyway.