Way back a few years ago, when my kids were a little much smaller than today, there was a key. The key belonged to the house of Annie, a neighbor's dog. The neighbor was named Chris. Chris had issued the key to my children for Annie's sake, so she could get outside in the afternoons while he was away. Annie loved it, the kids loved it, and Chris loved it, and all was well, until one day, we lost the key. I say we, because I feel some responsibilty (the kids being so small), but I want you to know, I never touched the key. This was an arrangement between Chris and the kids, which they seemingly had under control. I was a little embarrased to have to admit we had lost the key to his house, but Chris just laughed and went out and made a new key. After maybe a week or so, we repeated that exact same scenario. Then, again a while after that. At some point, Chris gave us a ring with two or three house keys. Personally, at this point, I would have had my locks changed, but he didn't seem too concerned. Honestly, I don't know that he had any other options for Annie. It was definitely awkward for me; I was mortified to mention to him on numerous occasions that we had lost the key yet again. It reminds somewhat of a feeling I experienced in school when I was tardy at over and over, that feeling, walking into the administrators office and having to come up with fresh excuses again & again. I still haven't gotten over my phobia of administrators. So anyway, these shenanigans with Chris and Annie all took place about 6 or 7 years ago. They are no longer our neighbors. In fact, they no longer live in our old neighborhood. So a few weeks ago, we were cleaning the basement. I hope you are already laughing; we laughed so hard. A few weeks ago, Daniel, Hannah, Emmeli, and I were going through some junk boxes in the basement. I had been down there all day cleaning and organizing and wanted to get to some sort of stopping point, so I had called in the reinforcements. It was the end of the day & the kids were all being so silly. They just didn't understand the seriousness of the situation; I really needed to get the heck outa there. So they're just pilfering through, stuffing their pockets with long lost treasues. Daniel was DJ and he was playing the worst music he could imagine, in an attempt to force me outa there, so I would stop giving orders and just let them party. But I hung in there. There were only a few things left to do, and I was enjoying having everyone around me after being down there by myself all day. I was fighting with Daniel to change the music, trying to get Emmeli to take off the roller blades (and then get off the skateboard), & trying to get Hannah to stop getting so distracted by all the shiny objects and get down to business. "What's this? What's that? Oh yah, I remember that." And then suddenly, she blurts out, "Chris's keys!" I think it took a half second for all of us to get passed thinking, who's Chris? Then, we all burst out laughing (everyone except Emmeli, I think, who's probably still thinking, who's Chris?)
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