Keyed up

I got in the kind of trouble over Christmas husbands get into when their wives bust in on them spending a little too long on one of their old girlfriend's Facebook page.
My transgression? I lost the keys to our mini-van.
That left us with one copy. Kate then informed me that our mini-van apparently has the security system of K.I.T.T. If we lose the second key, not only will we not be able to start our car, it will cost $300 to replace it.
Apparently the auto makers are finding all sorts of ways to make money if the buyout doesn't come through.
Kate had a copy made, but would it start the car? Oh, no. That was just so we could get inside the car if we lock the kids in there "by mistake." I've been tempted to make that mistake lately, but that's another post.
So imagine my sense of panic when Kate could not find our last key Saturday morning. It was LOST. Lost, I tell you. Lost.
"We're..." Kate said. I would tell you what she said but Kate is a good Catholic girl and prefers keep her PG rating intact. I've blown mine a long time ago. So I'll finish. "We're fucked," I said.
We looked. And looked. And got juice. It's kinda hard to set aside a lot of time looking when you've got three little kids wanting stuff from you.
I should now mention here that Friday, I watched all three kids. Things were, as you can guess, a little hectic, and by the time I had stopped by McDonald's (breaking one of my vows that I would never take my kids to those places, it's interesting how we make those vows before we have kids and we figure out what it's really like to raise children), all three were in full fuss. Full. Fuss.
When they are in full fuss, they do not like Daddy leaving them in the car, even if it's because you are taking one twin inside in one hand and you've got the toddler by the hand in the other.
So, yeah, it's somewhat understandable that I might toss the key somewhere, like on the table, and worry about other things, like getting the kids in their seats, putting the grub on their plates, getting their bibs on, cutting up an apple, etc.
At least it was to me.
Kate thought differently.
"Um, maybe it's at the gym," I said with hope. I went to the gym milliseconds after Kate returned home Friday and it could have fallen out when I was doing crunches.
Kate returned from the gym and shook her head.
Upstairs. Downstairs. The movie theater? My car? The van? We were getting desperate. We called the dealer and pleaded our case. We needed our van, or we have no transport to take the kids anywhere. Daycare. Parks. We were stranded. Fucked, in other words.
The dealer said he could cut us a key, but we have to have the van towed there. OK. Not a terrible solution. I called the towing place and they were on their way.
Except as a last resort, I grabbed the cut key Kate had made. It won't work, Kate tells me. Lowe's said so. We'll see.
It started the car.
I come back, smug. Man I am good. See, I tell Kate. You should try it.
So we cancelled the tow, cancelled the appointment at the dealer and put off getting new keys until Tuesday. Life returned to normal, which is to say, only kinda chaotic.
We were reveling in our kinda chaos when Kate decided to go get subs for everyone. She put in the cut key and began to pull out of the driveway, and...
um...
the car died.
Really. Really? Really. This security system really is amazing. I guess we're protected against terrorists who would want to crash our mini-van into, um, our recreation center or the inflatable bounce place or something.
So we called the tow place again, called the dealer back, both could still help us, and I went to get the subs. Her mother was there. By the time I get back, Kate's gone at the dealer and MIL's got all three kids.
Kate called me at the dealer.
Guess what she found at the bottom of my purse.
Just guess.
One guess.
Man. You're smart.
We've taken to calling Allie "swiper" these days, as I've said in previous posts. Our theory is that she took the keys and stuck them in Kate's purse.
And though I was frustrated at this, I was also relieved.
After all, it got me off the hook.