It would seem that "carma" is alive and well in my life as well as in the esteemed Sara M.'s.
Lauren and I have a tandem spot in our apartment, which is rarely an issue for us. When I get home on a week night I call up to her and she comes down and backs out, letting me park first so that hers is behind mine, because she leaves for work earlier than I do. We have a good roommate relationship, though, so if for some reason one of us needs to leave but is blocked in by the other, we both go down and switch the cars.
Additionally, I have her spare car key on my key ring, so that if she's asleep or gone or I'm just feeling powerful, I can do the switch by myself. Lauren does not enjoy a reciprocal benefit, as years ago I lost my spare key and some asshat lost my valet key for me -- as if I were not capable of misplacing it myself -- leaving me basically with only one way in and out of my vehicle. So occasionally, when I'm parked behind her at night and we are too comfortable in our living room to run outside and re-park, I figure I'll just get up in the morning when she leaves, shuffle downstairs in something that makes me look faintly like a vagrant ragamuffin, and then I'll be up for the day and get going early.
This morning, Lauren was kind. We forgot to discuss last night when I came home -- she was in the shower; I just went ahead and parked behind her -- that she could feel free to wake me up and drag me downstairs with her. Yet when my alarm went off at 7:30 a.m., she was already gone, and I had not left my sweet, warm bed.
That Lauren. She is an angel on this Earth. Or, you know, she was in a hurry, or just a good mood. Whatever.
I shot good vibes her way all morning for moving my car, freeing hers, reparking mine, and running my keys back upstairs -- an extra irritating step in a long car-swap process. In return I decided to stop walking past the bag of old newspapers and spent wrapping-paper rolls that had been sitting by the front door. No, I would not be lazy. I would take a page from Lauren and I would pick the damn thing up and throw it away on my way to work. I'm so brave and strong.
And indeed, I was a monument to efficiency. I swept through the apartment, grabbed my stuff, loaded up with garbage, and dumped it down the chute before catching the elevator down to the lobby. As I stepped out, I patted down my pocket in search of my keys.
Nothing.
Next, I checked my purse. Nothing. My jeans? Nothing. My hair? No keys there. I stopped short of a body-cavity search, having no memory of needing to swallow them or hide them somewhere obscene because they were made of illegal Cuban metal and the cops were on my tail.
I had locked myself out of my apartment, and my keys were inside.
And yet... no. I flashed back to actually locking the door, removing the keys, and hanging my hook keychain on my pointer finger as I strutted to the trash chute. Which could only mean...
I turned my head to the left, meeting my own eyes in the full-length mirror next to the elevator that always makes us look taller and slimmer than we really are.
"Oh holy god shit damn my keys are in the trash chute," I breathed, gasping so hard that my eyes flew open with lightning speed.
Quickly, I studied my ass in the skinny mirror, did a stomach check, then blew out my cheeks and glared at myself anew.
"You are so fucking dumb," I said out loud. "Your KEYS went down the TRASH CHUTE."
The feeling of utter idiocy that washed over me is a tough one to describe. It felt like popping a birth control pill out of the pack, bobbling it, and then watching it roll merrily across the sink and down the drain while your damn fool clumsy fingers struggle and fail to catch up to it. It felt like running the disposal, hearing a crunch, and realizing there's metal in there and that in a strange coincidence, your favorite ring is no longer on your finger. It's the action you react to by dropping your jaw, freezing completely, and letting your mind scour all the options to make sure that it did really happen and that it's irreversible, before you even contemplate how the hell you're going to deal with it.
At once I was sure I could rewind and do it over, so loony was this lapse, and yet of course I knew I'd never get back that moment to fix it. Keys. Trash chute. Who does that? I do.
I then entered my garage and walked over to the tall, rusting, painted-blue metal doors, which pull open awkwardly -- and with the constant threat of coming off and crushing either you or the Honda CRV that parks near them -- to reveal something with which I would have to become intimate: our dumpster. Indeed, once the reality of this farce settled around me, every sentence I thought to myself ended with or included the words, "YOUR KEYS WENT DOWN THE TRASH CHUTE."
When I came to grips with the cold, hard fact that I would have to dumpster-dive, I decided to go upstairs and change, get my rubber gloves, and get a flashlight. Oh, but: "YOU CAN'T. YOUR KEYS WENT DOWN THE TRASH CHUTE."
Ah: Call Kevin. "Where is my cell phone? Oh, I left it on the coffee table. I'll get it..."
"YOU CAN'T, FREAK. IN A MOVE OF UNPARALLELED BRILLIANCE, YOU THREW YOUR KEYS DOWN THE GARBAGE CHUTE."
Hmm. "Maybe I'll go out into the lobby again and knock on the super's door, and she can lend me a flashlight and gloves..."
"YOU CAN'T EVEN DO THAT, FUCKPUNCHER, BECAUSE YOU HURLED YOUR KEYS DOWN A LONG NARROW TUNNEL THAT SPAT THEM OUT INTO A PILE OF GARBAGE ROTTING IN THE DUMPSTER, AND WITHOUT THEM, YOU CANNOT OPEN THE DOOR BACK TO THE LOBBY. AND IF YOU GO OUTSIDE, YOU CANNOT GET BACK INSIDE. YOU, MY DEAR, ARE REALLY STUPID."
I crept back to the dumpster cave and entered, breath held. And blessedly, a miracle: There was very little actual filthy trash inside it. Enough of a bed of rubbish existed so that I could still reach down and touch what I had thrown out, but it wasn't so much stuff that my keys were coated in curdled milk, sticky and wadded Kleenex, molding carrots, or other festering, funky food.
With my stomach resing on the dumpster's metal edge, I leaned foward, my feet leaving the floor and flailing a little as I tried to keep my balance. I swiped at my bag of newspapers. It shifted. Nothing.
"*&!@#^*&$^@&%^&," I said, delicately.
Next, I got a piece of wrapping-paper tube and nothing else: Swipe two, strike two.
On the third go, my feet completely off the ground, I hit the bag and heard a jingling. The brown sack slipped away from me, and there underneath it were my keys. My beautiful, prized, and highly functional keys. One more vigorous lean and they were in my hand.
No sooner had I collected my booty than I scampered out of the dumpster hovel, wiping at my shirt as if insects were crawling on it. Somehow, I felt this would wave away any lingering trash smell, although I still spent a further five minutes sniffing my hands, my clothes, and my keys to make sure I didn't reek of rubbish. Then I paused, smoothed my hair, picked up my purse, and went to my car, as if I hadn't just fished my keys out of a goddamn dumpster at the bottom of a trash chute.
Thank God I didn't have to climb in and wade through piles of waste. Thank God the dumpster people hadn't been there ready to cart away the damn thing right as I needed to dig through it. And most of all, thank God no one saw me do any of it.
But I guess that's what I get for not having foresight last night about the car swap. Perhaps this was the universe paying me back for being lazy and forgetful.
Actually, what I really think: This was Karma's way of telling me that there's more of this to come if I don't hurry up and cut a second key to my car.
So, Merry Christmas, Honda of Santa Monica. I have a cash gift for you.