Keyless in Winter

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt is to write about an excessive amount of snow. Today’s story comes to us from Val Muller, author of the kidlit mystery series Corgi Capers.

 

Keyless in Winter

by Val Muller

 

It must have fallen when I went to get the mail. It must have fallen right there on the driveway. It might have even made a sound, but I was too busy with my teeth chattering and moaning about how much I hate the cold.

My palm tree keychain. Plink, on the frozen drive.

Yes, I see the irony. Palm tree swallowed by the cold death of winter. This certainly won't help me to love winter any more or hate it any less.

So there I was, hurrying inside with the mail, in through the garage, past the car that still sits there in the garage, pointlessly sitting without a key. Ignorant to my impending problem, I went inside to my nice warm home. That's when the heavens opened up and dumped several feet of snow on everything we are and everything we own.

Of course, it didn't matter for the first three days. I didn’t even know I didn’t have my keys. But the office will be opening up again on Monday. And I still can't find my keys. Old man Frank came over and plowed the driveway for me, made it so I didn’t ever have to leave the house. And I'm sure that's where the problem is.

I checked my coat pocket, my car, I retraced my steps. The only possible place the keys could be is the driveway.

Was the driveway, rather. I'm sure Old Man Frank, in an attempt to help me, scraped up my key along with feet and feet of snow. But it’s not his fault. If I had been shoveling by hand, it may still have been lost. But there’s no way he would have seen it with the plow. And now it's hidden among the mounds of snow lining my driveway.

People joke about a needle in a haystack, but at least you could set fire to the haystack and the needle will be there in the charred ashes. But you don’t need to find a needle to be able to start your car. How am I supposed to find my car key? What am I going to do? Wait until April to drive my car? Even if you could set fire to the snow, even if I could find a fire torch, it would melt those keys.

How will I tell my boss? This is the adult version of the pathetic “dog ate my homework” excuse. People with those types of excuses are not going places.

I called the dealership. That key is—get this, four hundred dollars. And as an added slap in the face: you have to be there, at the dealership, to pick it up.

This is the kind of thing they don't teach you in school. They don’t tell you what to do if your car is parked uselessly in the garage and your keys are stuck in several feet of snow somewhere, maybe, hopefully, along the driveway, and you have to get into the office on Monday.

So for now I’m sitting by the fire, enjoying not the fallen snow or a cheesy holiday film. Instead, I’m researching how to hotwire my car so I can start it and get it to the dealership on Monday. When I fail that, I guess I’ll just call for a tow.

I don’t hate winter any less, and if this had happened in the summer—which it wouldn’t, because I would see the keys right away—I could just ride my bike to work. Only 154 days til summer. But who’s counting?

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The Spot Writers—Our Members: 

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/