Damn that Key Disease! Damn you!

As a outspoken soothsayer and in my mother's camp, Charlie says we all literally drove my mother, Martha, aka the secretary, into madness as were always looking for and missing our keys -- things my mother just couldn't understand or contemplate. Mom's always had her ducks in a row regarding such important details in her life.

My brother, my sister, my father, and I all experience this aggravating affliction we affectionately call the key disease. I've learned to never keep my car key with my house key so losing one wouldn't be a show-stopping disaster.

Well, tonight my father thought he had lost his keys somewhere in my house he believed. We were having a nice, long, and congenial conversation when dad stood up to leave and his keys weren't in his pockets. We headed into the laundry room for Ms. Maggin's ritual.

"Son of a bitch." said my very aggravated and agitated father very crassly as we ran into a dead end in the laundry room.

"Let's look in your car one more time," I told my father in a positive tangent. "Let me get my flashlight."

There they were laying on the floorboard of his Honda driver's seat side. Dad sighed with relief and drove home not without thanking me profusely before he left.

They say that the amount of keys on your key ring is a good measure of how much responsibility you bear. I have three keys and my father has dozens. It speaks volumes.