I hope other parents will sympathize with the harried working mom story I must tell.  It's a tale that as Copago used to say, if you're going to laugh at this in a few years, you may as well laugh now.  It's a tale of a young mom with two kids in tow, going to take her one child to kindergarten, and holding her second child firmly on her hip that God gave us for this purpose...going gingerly down the steps of the third floor apt we lived in then, clutching the trash bag in one hand, the keys ready to open the Trooper, the purse, and of course, the hand of the older child...as people tend to behave very badly in parking lots in my experience and you must watch your kids at all times. 

Locking the door etc..then clutching this whole entourage and equipment firmly to me...I cross the parking lot to the trash bin, peer into the bin, and let go of one of the objects in my hand.   I suppose anyone has experienced the coordinational challenge represented in holding keys, phone, kid, or a piece of paper and a trash bag.  Dropping the right object isn't easy.  So, did I drop the baby?  No, the older child was to low to be dropped...but don't worry, she's rarely excluded from any story as she always gets into the middle of it.  Did I drop the trash bag? No, that was clenched firmly in the hand, but the keys were now at the bottom of the dumpster.  The baby was happily watching my dismay and then subsequent excitement over the situation.  The big sister was probably tsk tsking already at Mommy being such a dolt.

However, for the price of a new Barbie to seal her lips as to her father's knowledge of such a tale, she went into the dumpster in her school attire, probably something fluffy and twirly at that point, and fetched the keys out.   Her brother was happy again, as he didn't get dropped in all this mess.  No one let the proverbial cat out of the bag either...because a mark like that on the marital scoreboard would have been hard to erase!   You'd have to save up big booboos for a year to have that one fade!  

So, we went about our business that day and basically forgot about it, or did we?  I think I had forgotten the boy's memory was good. 

One day many years later in France, our apt building had a complicated system for getting in and out of the building, and the parking lot was about ten flights of tiny stairs carved into the rock and three keys access and the door key was not copiable so I was always very worried about losing my keys.  My children no longer required carrying on my hips though.  We had a little lady on our floor who was very sweet to my kids and we always gave her hand if she needed it.  That's the way I was raised, as I'm sure you were too.  So, poor Josee was in a flurry of key loss down in the lower car parking lot...as she was basically locked downstairs, out of her house and out of her car!   I tried to calm her down, but she was worried that her younger relative would hear about it and think she was a total failure and ready for the loony bin. 

I told her, 'you know, I did that when I was a young mother to two small kids...the keys went into the bin..so don't feel bad.' 

And we went upstairs to the bin and my son looked at me and...all his knowledge of the past came back to him and he went into the bin and looked for her keys...but alas...nothing doing. 

I sighed, and then, we went to the former concierge's apt...who had been ousted but was suing them for backwages and living in the apt he'd occupied for years.  An old lady downstairs looked at us, and said, 'you haven't got the right to ask him...he's no longer employed by us.' 

She looked at my neighbor Josee, another lady around the same age, and looked at her like she was despiccable for losing her keys! 

I quickly said, 'oh well, we'll just have a go, shall we?'

We went up and the guy's wife answered the door and I said, 'I know you don't have to help us, but she thinks you might have a pair of keys for her place....could you look at it please?'

And the lady gave us the keys!   Yoo hoo!  Those keys require a code to duplicate or, you have a locksmith take the entire door down!  

Whew, we went back and unlocked the door and she made me some tea...and said, that other woman was rabid...I agreed.   I just said, 'well Josee, some women really are 'old' and others are like you and me...we don't lose our sense of humor ever!' 

She also told me that, some people would not have wanted to help her...which I personally found obscene.  The fact that you would not render assistance to an older lady...just doesn't jive with me. 

My son became the paragon of virtue...deserved or undeserved, but a young lad who rendered service above and beyond the call of duty to her was an ok guy in her book.

When the older sourpusses would complain about him playing outside with a little squirtgun...she went down and said gently that he was a marvellous boy and had helped her on many occasions.  

One day, on his birthday, one of his friends was scaling the corridor walls, you know when you shimmy up a few feet?   The wallpaper was fuzzy seventies style yuck...and the footprints were pretty obvious...

Her guardian friend came out and yelled at the boys...and she came out and intervened divinely.  

Once the boys had left the party, my son and I went out with scrubbers and got to work...and she came out and said not to pay the old man any mind. 

She brought the boy some chocolates because she found him so responsible after his friends did the stupid thing.

The lesson of this story? Not sure there is one, except that the key thing could happen to anyone, and your attitude counts.  You can either flip out, or, find a way of getting the keys out of the dumpster.

Ah yes, I forgot, Josee came up to me and sheepishly said, 'Heather, guess what?  I found them...they were zipped into the pocket of my bag and they didn't make any noise.'   She looked at me as if I was going to tell her she was a stupid old woman losing her marbles...and I thought, gee whiz, that could have happened to me and has!