The Misadventures of Moo

The location of last night's date reminded me of a funny story. It's too funny not to share.

One of the many reasons I love the company I work for is our Friday happy hour. Every Friday afternoon, right about 4 pm, A, our office manager, wheels out a cooler full of beer and wine along with chips and salsa. It's a company tradition. Some Fridays are more raucous than others, and I used to be a frequent participant in all of the craziness.

One Friday last March a group of us were having some drinks at the office. I was supposed to meet some friends at a bar later in the evening and since I was going to leave my car in the parking garage, I needed to go down to it to get my key card so I could get back into the building on Saturday to retrieve my car.

Our office is on the 18th floor, the parking garage, obviously, is underneath the building. So one would need to ride the elevator down to the garage. I'm not sure how this happened, but as I stepped onto the elevator, keys in hand, I dropped my keys! And you know that crack between the elevator and the floor your on? The one that doesn't look like much could fit through it? Yeah, that one. My keys (all of 'em, car keys, house keys, everything) fell through that crack. They didn't even bounce off anything. I swear, it was nothing but net!

I'm pretty sure I heard my keys hit the ground, 18 stories below. I immediately rode the elevator down to the lobby to see if the security guard could help me. No such luck. The only person who could get my keys out of the elevator shaft would be the elevator guy and that would cost me $150. Crap!

I may have panicked just a little. (Who me?) I called my friend C, who I was supposed to be meeting, hoping he would know what to do. He thought I was crazy. Then I called L, who had a key to my place. Got her voicemail. Then I called my landlord, got her voicemail as well.

I was stranded. No car (not that I was really in any condition to drive). No house keys (so I couldn't go home, even if I wanted to). What to do? Drink some more!

A bunch of us ended up at the Waterfront (the location of my ill fated date last night). We took photos in the little booth. We sang along loudly to the jukebox. We drank A LOT. I tried to forget my troubles.

Finally, around 10 pm my landlord called me back. Luckily, she was able to put a house key under my mat, so that when I finally did make it home I could get in. And of course, at home I had spare keys to my car. Problem solved.

A few days later, the building manager called me. She was so nice. She said that if I could wait a couple of more days to retrieve my keys, she wouldn't have to charge me, since the elevator guy was coming out anyway.

That Wednesday, one of the security guys tracked me down. He had my keys. I've never seen a sorrier sight. My car alarm fob was broken open, my car key broken clean in half, and my house key was totally mangled. But I had my keys! And it didn't cost me $150.