Per tradition, we spend Christmas Eve at my mom's house in North Hollywood, about 45 miles from our house. She has food for us, and gifts are exchanged. These days I go on my own, but sometimes Diana comes along if she doesn't have plans or has the evening off. This year she was busy, so it was just me.
I stopped by home to turn on lights, then locked up and headed to Mom's. The evening went fine, and just after 1am I decided to head home. All was well till I got home and discovered that I did not have my house keys. I searched the car, nothing. Diana was at a friend's for the night, and a text message to her went unanswered.
Even though it was going on 3am, I called my mom, hoping someone there would still be up. My mom answered, but sounded a bit groggy (I'm sure I woke her). I explained what happened, and she looked through all the places I had been sitting. Nothing. She did say that if I couldn't reach Diana that I could go back to her place and sleep on the couch. And she'd leave the front door unlocked for me.
After some thought, I decided to go back down there to look through the house myself. Before going, I noticed that I had 1/8 of a tank of gas, so I'd have to fill up. While I filled up my car I looked across the street at 7-Eleven and decided to get a soda there before hitting the road.
It took about 45 minutes to get back to Mom's, and I got there about 4am. I took one of my small LED flashlights in with me and looked everywhere to no avail. My keys weren't in the house. I locked the door behind me and decided to see if my keys might be on the grass.
A little searching with the light eventually revealed some familiar looking keys a few feet from the driveway. Sure enough, they were mine. The only thing missing was the little locomotive, a part of the keychain. I looked a little for that, but decided to wait till I was back down there next time. The important thing was that I had my keys.
I got back home about 6am and brought everything in after getting the door open. When I set down my cup from 7-Eleven, I saw the locomotive from my keychain. I figured that it must have come apart at home and Diana found it when she stopped by after I had left. Just like I thought...
Going to bed at 6:30am without a shower was no fun, but I needed to sleep. I managed to get up just before noon on Christmas Day. Diana came by later and we filled each other in as to how we spent our Christmas Eve. She said that she found the locomotive from my keychain on the front porch and left it where I normally set down my drinks so I'd find it.
Needless to say, I'm going to be more careful with my stuff in the future. Christmas (and Christmas Eve) should be a relaxing time, not a frantic search for things that shouldn't have been lost in the first place. I just need to get my act together.
Merry Christmas to all!
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