Monday, April 09, 2007

"Tony, Tony, turn around"

Do you know how I really know there is a God? My (blind) mother found the car keys this evening. Hurray! Six days they were missing. I went through the house, garden and gutter inch by inch. We rang the police and asked in the nearest pub to see if anyone had handed them in. I ransacked my sons' drawers, wardrobes and under bed, darksome places as if my boys were teenagers and I was looking for cannabis. We were visited by friends up from London with three teenagers of their own; I put a £50 bounty on the car keys and set them loose. Still nothing. I offered my own children a £5 bounty. Zip. Nada. My mother gets put in charge of the baby and starts amusing her by going through a toy box and bingo. The baby had presumably filched them and then staggered over to one of her crates of toys and dropped them in it with all the other good stuff. I would not mind but I had been through the boys toys in case they had done the same thing. My mother had prayed to St Anthony (the Catholic saint you pray to when you lose things). I had prayed to Saint Anthony. My 82-year-old Aunty lit three candles on successive days to Saint Anthony. (Apparently, I owe her 30 pence. Infinitely cheaper than the adolescents.) It turned out my boys were innocent of any car key crime, my husband is a man of infinite patience and I still need my mother. The best bit, aside from the fact it was my mother who found the keys, which in itself I consider deeply cool, was that I could rescue the bunny ears and face paints from the boot. That is how we had tea. Late, but with whiskers. It crossed my mind, while I was painting rabbit noses over freckles, that I could say a prayer and ask him where my London life went.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Moms. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you have found your keys. Your husband will have to come down from the moral high ground now.

Anonymous said...

Just wait til your husband leaves the keys on the car roof tomorrow

Anonymous said...

I pray to St. Anthony all the time, but I also include St. Jude (just in case). :) So glad your mom found them for you... and you'll have to remember your husband's good nature through all of this if and when something like this happens to him.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful!!! Kuods to Mum--must do her heart good to have done what no others could. Now, get three--no, four--copies made immediately and dthen istribute them in multiple places out of reach of the young-uns...

Steve said...

Hurray! Who says there are no Easter egg hunts for grown-ups?

Central User said...

Quick... Get the spare key ordered. It will be cheaper now the car shouldn't need to be reprogrammed.

Gone said...

It's also good to see your mother is trying to help the bairns fit in teaching the baby Bingo, it will come in handy for her life up here.

Anonymous said...

Glad they've been found, and such irony that an unsighted person found them !. Well done Mum!
I had a ghastly feeling you were going to find them 5 mintes after you had paid for a new key!(sod's law)
Time to destress methinks, day out at a health farm plus a glass or two of bubbly......

Anonymous said...

Hoorah, I can almost feel the relief!!

Get one of those beepy things, and attach to the keyring, then if you lose it you can beep and beep in all the obvious places and hopefully it will beep back at you.

Anonymous said...

Good old St Anthony - he has saved my bacon many times.

And glad you found the keys and were able to do a bit of Easter Bunny painting after all.

Anonymous said...

Well at least with your losing the car keys, hubby couldn't use up all the petrol again.

Bong Mom said...

You are funny :) I have been reading your blog and its been funny but I never commented.
But this was too much, as I often loose my car keys too. Once It was right there on the roof of the car, the car outside the garage whole night
My hubby didn't really say anything but took a pic for future reference :)

Anonymous said...

I started saying prayers to St. Anthony the moment I read your entry stating that your keys were missing. Good old Tony nearly always come through for me! I'm so glad your mum found them (with Anthony guiding her hands perhaps)

Anonymous said...

My children bought me a beepy keyring, but it beeped every time there was a high note on the car radio, and ran out of battery power after a week. A spare in a very safe place that you only use in a real emergency is a safer bet.

The Draughtsman said...

Phew!!!
Its like Sherlock Holmes was reputed to have said, "If you have tried all the obvious places you must also try the least obvious..."
All's well that ends well I s'pose.
I'm off to Wales for a few days to see my grandkids... is it my turn now?

Anonymous said...

Norman,

A bit of a misquote..... being a Sherlock Holmes buff myself, the actual quote is:-

..."when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". ....

however the gist of what you say is correct !!!

Anonymous said...

Never mind Wifey! No big deal...

Anonymous said...

Yes indeed - where would we be without our mums...