Feast or Famine

I know. I don't blog for days and then blog like crazy.

I was chatting about something with my wonderful colleagues on my researcher forum and we got on the topic of crazy stories about finding lost stuff. I shared this with them and wanted to share it here, too:

Okay, here's one of mine. I was flirting talking with Mark outside his dorm window (remember, this is BYU, so no girls in boys' dorms and vice versa) and apparently while jumping around and throwing snowballs standing quietly and talking nonchalantly, my dorm keys fell out of my pocket. I didn't know they'd fallen out, but later I couldn't find my keys.

So, I looked everywhere and, thinking back and retracing my footsteps, thought that they might be in the snow outside Mark's window. So, I looked and looked and refused to give up (i.e., refused to pay the $25 fee to replace them when I was sure they were simply under several feet of snow in a field!). I would not give up. I would not be deterred. I even seriously considered getting an extension cord and using it from Mark's dorm room (2nd floor) to plug in a hair dryer to melt the snow in order to find the keys. Yes, I'm that persistent.

Anyway, I talked Mark and some friends into helping me look (I told them I'd buy a shake at Cosmo's for anyone who found the keys). So, Mark's super-loyal and really nice roommate finds them, quietly hands them to Mark, and Mark holds them up and cashes in on his shake. Totally worth it.



As time went on, Mark and I started dating. A couple of months later, when I was sick in bed for a few days with a bad bug, he and I missed seeing each other and having breakfast together at the cafeteria. So, he called me every night and wrote me bedtime stories and poems. Here is one of them inspired by that incident:


LET'S FIND MY KEYS

Can someone come help me?
Come help me please.
Somewhere out there
I've lost my keys.

I've looked way up high
And I've looked way down low.
They're somewhere outside
Under Mark's window in the snow.

We were running and jumping
And slipping and sliding
And somewhere my keys
Are laughing and hiding.

I've thought of melting the snow
With a little hair dryer
Or looking from above
On an outstretched high wire.

Or a metal detector
Or a large bonfire
Or a professional investigator
That I could hire.

But all this only works
If they're here in this snow.
There's a chance they're lost
In someplace like Africa, though.

Then we'll need a camel
To travel 'cross the sands
And plenty of water
For a trek in hot lands.

If they're not there
We'll jump on a plane
And fly really quickly
To the state of Maine.

Or we'll swim across the ocean
To islands afar,
And then we'll return
To Madagascar.

Spain is quite nice this
Time of the year
Or Paris, or Venice...
They're pleasant I hear.

We'll run across Russia
Screaming to my keys,
"Come out wherever you are.
Oh, come out please!"

We'll search for a year
Or a decade or more.
My children will search
When I can't walk anymore.

Maybe I'm a victim
Of something like grand theft!
Some spies must have stolen them
And now they have left!

Call the police
Or the FBI!
Hire a hitman!
Hire a spy!

Give me the president!
Get him on the phone!
Until I get action
I won't leave him alone!

If he won't help
I'll start my own group
Called the "Anti-spy, anti-theft,
Anti-lost keys troop."

We'll march on Washington
Spring, summer, and fall.
We'll show the world
You can fight City Hall.

Wait just a minute . . .
What was that sound?
Something in my pocket . . .
LOOK WHAT I'VE FOUND!!!

Here all the time,
Here in my pocket.
Uh-oh! Oh no!
I think I've lost my locket!

Copyright 1993