I have 8 minutes to tell you the story of how my keys disappeared in Omaha, Nebraska. Here we go!
Back in May of 2016, Tom and I traveled to Omaha to celebrate my sister's graduation from pharmacy school at Creighton University. It was such an exciting weekend and wonderful time celebrating my sister's many accomplishments (I was, and am, so proud of her!) We went to a few ceremonies, ate some delicious meals, went swimming and spent time with small Millie (aw!) and enjoyed family time together.
The long weekend wasn't without its mishaps. On one afternoon, Tom went out for a ride on his bicycle--he had planned out a route in advance and was really excited for a long adventure. Except he ended up destroying the derailleur on his bike... not cool. It was fixable once we got back to the city, but still quite unfortunate.
Fast forward to Sunday night, the night before our departure. After dinner, and saying goodbye to my family, we went back to our hotel room to get packed up. At one point, I accidentally knocked my purse over from the chair onto the floor. I started picking up the contents when I realized that I never heard the familiar jingle of my keys as the purse fell. Very quickly I realized that my keys were in fact... not there. I looked again through the bag, on the floor, under the chair, in the cushions, but they were just... gone!
My next move was to tell Tom about this development. Apartment keys, car keys (you know, the only set we had on us), just vanished without a trace. What ensued was a stressful period of trying to retrace our steps in the dark, with the help of our smartphone flashlights; we hadn't gone that far all evening, just across the street and back, but the keys were just nowhere to be found. I was devastated. How could they just disappear?
When we finally paused search operations, after exhausting most of our options, we called up the insurance company. Long story short, they weren't going to take care of this cheaply. Our best option was to call a locksmith, and if I remember correctly, we had to call a few before we found one who could make our type of key. The one we eventually connected with was a nice guy named Mike; he made a new key for the Honda after midnight in the parking lot of the Sleep Inn near the airport, service with a smile
It was a stressful couple of hours and so frustrating because I really have no idea where those keys disappeared to. Luckily my work keys were locked up in the car; losing them would have been an even bigger hassle. It wasn't cheap, but it was better than being stranded in Nebraska. Between losing my keys, Tom's bike catastrophically failing, and our earlier misfortunes in the state, we figured we needed to get back to Chicago before anything else ridiculous happened.
When we got home, we had our landlord let us in to the apartment and I went to Clark Devon Hardware the next day to make copies of our apartment keys. Definitely not an ideal situation. Still, we got through it together, we figured it out. Tom was amazing the entire time, he did a good job of being patient with me while I was freaking out and helping me calm down and problem solve. Grateful for him, always. To this day, I have no idea where those keys could have possibly gone... but Nebraska, you can just keep 'em!
(Confession: I wrote for longer than 8 minutes. Sometimes you just lose track of time--and the timer!)
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