The next day did not prove to be fruitful for the key search. Wolfie called the Methodist Church and was rewarded with a long conversation by a very kind old lady who suggested that she put the key on a key ring and get one of those key chains that lights up or something like that to assist in the finding of the key. She even called down to the maintenance man at the church to have him check the sanctuary for the key, but with no success. However, Wolfie was invited to come to look for the key herself. As the precious old lady said, "It might be worth your time to come look for yourself because I'm sure that no one would be looking for a single key. You know, it just wouldn't cross many people's minds. Even though I told John to look for a single gold colored key, you know, he was probably looking for a key ring. So just come on over, around four o'clock, and you can have a good look around yourself. I really think it would be worth your time. All right, dear, see you at four o'clock."
The conversation at Panera was much less cheerful. After a brief conversation with the burly male voice that answered the phone at the bread company ascertaining that there was not a key in either booth, she was invited to come and look for herself later in the day as well. Wolfie asked all of her friends at the planetarium, but no one had seen a key (strangely, a single silver house key had been turned into the gift shop that was dishearteningly dissimilar to the missing key and which made the ninja-like trip to the alarmed ticket office a bit pointless, though no less epic). After a long day at camp with kiddies, Wolfie trudged over to the church and had a look around herself. She left the church empty handed after a long conversation about birdhouses, brought on by the offhand comment, "I'm just going to hope that a bird took the key for its nest because that's more cheerful." Wolfie trudged down to a key-less Panera and then trudged once more down to the bus stop and back to the apartment.
She found Smalls on the couch beasting another temple in Wind Waker. Smiling apologetically, she explained that she had not found the key anywhere and sighed apologetically as she flopped down on the opposing couch next to Tiberius. Smalls was quite understanding and offered to show Wolfie how to unlock the door using the credit card and Wolfie gladly accepted, feeling that this skill, along with picking locks using hair pins, would come in handy in later life. They headed out the door, leaving Tiberius to jump up to the couch near the window to watch their progress.
Wolfie first handed over her license, since it needed to be renewed anyway. Wolfie, having both recently turned 21 and recently been mistaken for a middle schooler, was not concerned about the safety of a piece of plastic that compounded the problem by declaring that she was underage. She settled back against the black rail of the porch to watch a master at work. She exclaimed when she heard a click but was tempered in her excitement by Smalls' assurance that "That might sound like a good noise, but is, in fact not." She settled back further as Smalls demonstrated the best way to insert the plastic into the space between the door and the door frame and nodded understandingly as she watched the technique. However, the lessons progress was interrupted by the snapping of plastic. Smalls handed back Wolfie's license in two slightly bent pieces. Even in retrospect, Wolfie said that this was not a big deal at all- in fact, in removing that incriminating picture, it was probably actually a good thing. In fact, since Wolfie did not own a car, it would be months before a new license would be required.
It was at this point in the lesson that both the student and the teacher realized that the key to their relief lay on the other side of the immovable front door, both literally and figuratively. A few feet from Tiberius' faithful perch were Smalls' keys and both of their cell phones. Wolfie handed over her check card and Smalls fought the lock with renewed motivation. The oppressive heat, humidity and blood sucking insects of a late Hapel Chill summer drove the two of them to consider various other options. With locked and screened windows and a locked rear door, the only option seemed to ask the community office to let them back into the apartment. Wolfie set off down the road as Smalls had walked onto her porch barefoot. After a brief conversation with the lady in the office, she headed back to the apartment to find Smalls on the porch watching a new neighbor move in what looked like stolen paintings into her apartment from a large unmarked truck. Tiberius had abandoned the situation to hunt down a wild bone in the jungle that the living room must appear to a foot high terrier.
Smalls and Wolfie sat on the front porch shooting the breeze as package after large package was moved from the truck. The maintenance man never came, but the lady in the office came by on her way out for the evening to let them in. Grateful for the artificially cooled air, the two sunk down onto the couches and vowed never to speak of the incident again. Wolfie only gave me details under extreme duress, forcing an oath of secrecy upon me. However, it's too good of a story to keep silent. (For reals, who loses their key, knows they can't open the door with a card and then locks themselves outside without keys? Pretty intelligent and awesome people, that's who.)
Later that evening, Wolfie went to have a movie night with Sarah. On the way out of the house at the end of the night, Sarah noticed that she didn't have her keys. Her dutiful friend attempted to pick the lock with Wolfie's beaten and now unusable check card, but determined that the card was too flexible to force the lock back into its slot in the door. Wolfie was now satisfied that she was among three people in her life who were capable of unlocking doors with credit cards and considered the whole experience a combination of cursed luck and awkward happenstance. She slept well that night knowing that an extra key was being made the next day.
Of course, the next day Wolfie was greeted with a voicemail from Panera, where her key had been recovered. She gave it a place of honor on her key chain and smiled ruefully as the clerk at Wachovia mildly judged her when she showed her battered plastic. She would have you know, dear friends, that though her epic ended happily, do not allow your story to become a tragedy. Buy a large exciting key chain that lights up and practice opening your doors with those fake credit cards they send in the mail. Because clearly there are no other moral lessons to be gleaned from this story.
The end.
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