The perils of locking things

John and I have a bad track record when it comes to keys.  We just don't seem to be able to keep up with, keep them out of locked places, or use them in the proper way.  You would think after almost 10 years of marriage you would think we have gotten better, but nope the key monster struck again today. 

So here is a little history for those who have not known us that long, or even at all in real life. When we met John and I lived in old A frame cabins that OMSI (our employer) bought at auction from the old Rajneesh cult headquarters in Eastern Oregon. 

Not only did the cabins not even have locks on them, we actually left our keys in the our cars there in the ignition with all of our valuables in them.  Why?  You might ask if you live somewhere that resembles civilization...  We lived in wildfire country and we would spend weeks in the field and we were responsible for other people's children.  So if a fire came through, crews could move our cars easier than they could defend the property.  So logically we developed some odd habits. 

Now fast forward to our wedding.  After living in a little place with literally 18 people for almost two years, we were going to get married at another OMSI facility in Bend, Oregon.  Picture this:  The day before our wedding we decided rather than doing something wild and late nightish we took all of our friends down the Deschutes River for our bachelor/bacheloret party.  It was fun, yes very cold, but still lots of fun.  Because John can lift heavy boats and I can't, I was in charge of running the shuttle to get our pickup truck after the trip.  When I get there they keys are not in the standard hiding place.  Thank goodness I am able to find a back up set in a dry bag.  I use the backup after looking all over for the keys he "left" at the car that morning.  Meanwhile the delay has caused us all to miss the rehearsal for our wedding.  Oops.  Fortunately, we were smart enough to get our Moms massages and they were amazingly Ok with this fact.  I guess the assumed that we would not have payed much attention anyway. 

Now zoom into the next day.  We have a lovely June wedding in Bend, Oregon.  Our old black lab is the ring bearer, happily tromping through the snow to chase the squirrels.  Yes, Snow at our outdoor wedding in June.  Oh well we roll with it, and pass a bunch of smelly wool blankets and sleeping bags out to the guest so that they can stop chattering their teeth and we can get on with the wedding.  So it is lovely, we have a good time.  Then it comes time for us to leave the party and go to our whopping 2 day honey moon.  But, you know what the difference is between the Yiddish and the British is?  The British leave without saying goodbye and the Yiddish say goodbye without leaving.  We said goodbye for hours that night.  In fact, we were the last people to leave our wedding because the 2nd set of keys to the pick up were gone.  Vanished, no where to be found.  So, the first time I referred to John as my husband was to AAA explaining that "my husband's car has no keys!"

Fast forward to the next significant event of our life.  Buying a house.  We lived in a very tiny town in Eastern Oregon with a whopping 120 people.  Keys and locking were an abstract thing, and in fact the whole time we rented the house we did not even have a key for it.  This part of Oregon everyone has a gun or two.  This makes crime very personal there.  No one seems to commit random crime or theft because the risk is too great.  But, we had just bought the house and finally had keys.  We had actually been invited that weekend to go skiing with friends but when we got up at 4am the power was off.  No big surprise as this was a weekly thing when we first moved there.  We lit a bunch of candles, got ready, the sun rose, locked the door for the first time and we left. 

Then as we are on the ski lift John  has a horrible realization that he left candles burning in the house.  He became convinced that the house was going to burn down.  Seeing as we had only received keys to the house we had been living in for 6 months we had not given anyone in town a spare.  All our neighbor Tom could do was promise he would call the volunteer fire department the second he saw the house burst into flames.  I am pretty sure this was one of the last times we locked our house. 

The next major event was when I was working on my masters degree in LaGrand, OR.  That first summer John and I literally did not see each other for 1.5 months.  He worked Thursday-Monday and I went to school Monday-Friday.  We went back and forth taking care of the dog, but we needed our neighbor Tom (who is well into his 80's) to watch her on Thursday night and Friday morning until I got home.  Well, on my last Friday of school, I came home with my friend Marlene who was going to live with us for a while, and all of her stuff.  The instant we got all of her boxes in the house, we got a call to go to a party. The dog needed to stay, but she had been let out and had dinner.  Marleen, thinking she was doing a good thing locked the back door (the one Tom always used.)  I went out the front door and we were off.  We got home about 1am and the phone instantly rang.  It was Tom and he was upset.  "Where the Hell have you been and why are you moving out?  Oh and I broke down your back door, so don't call the cops, it was just me!"  See Tom got confused, and thought it was Thursday, heard the dog bark, thought he was going crazy, found the door locked, broke it down, found the boxes, panicked then ran back home and waited for a light to go on.  Little did he know the front door was left wide open. 

All of this makes today seem quite boring, but still ridiculous.  The other day John went to move my car into the shade.  He used his set of my car's keys to move it then left them on the seat.  I later went somewhere using my keys.  When I got to where I was going I saw the second set and I put them in the glove box, not wanting to leave them in site.  (We are clearly no longer living in Oregon.)  Well, today I needed to run some errands without the boys early this morning.  I made everyone breakfast and then I was ready to leave.  I head out to my car only to see that John's truck and trailer and in the middle of the driveway.  I explain that he must move it.  He eventually does, and then he decided he needs to turn my car around for me (I am sure he was thinking he was being helpful.)  At this point he leaves the keys in the ignition and closes the door.  Then my lovely little possessed car locks as he walks away.  With all of the keys in it. 

I think we were meant for a very different type of life that does not involve keys and locks.  Not sure of the complete message here, but there is some bigger life lesson or moral that I am sure will become unlocked for us eventualy.