By Kelley Lindberg
So there’s this set of keys. Four of them, to be exact. They’re on a simple ring, along with a shopper’s discount card and a membership card to a gym. Yesterday evening, I pulled them out of the outside pocket of my purse.
The thing is, they’re not mine.
I texted all the friends I’ve seen in the last few days. None of them is missing a set of keys. I asked my husband. He suspects the pool-boy. However, we have no pool, i.e., no pool-boy.
This morning, I stopped by the gym (which I’ve never belonged to) and asked them to scan the card. They did. It’s an invalid account, so there’s no name in their system.
I called the shopper’s discount store, and got transferred into black holes several times. I finally hung up, took a photo of the keys, and posted it on Facebook.
So far, nothing.
I’m quite worried.
According to all the best-selling thrillers, within the next 24 hours, this innocuous little set of keys is going to lead me headlong into a mega-conspiracy involving corrupt politicians, international assassins, a wise-cracking computer hacker, an earnestly flawed and extremely good-looking detective, a femme fatale, a hard-bitten FBI agent or two, and possibly a werewolf who may or may not have a day job as a pool-boy (I’m thinking Matthew McConnaughey).
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that as the plot unfolds messily around me, I’ll find myself trapped in a windowless room without a cell phone at least once, thrown into a car trunk, shot in a non-essential and mostly bloodless body part, and threatened by a leering bad guy with a dramatic sense of confessional storytelling. And all that’s after I’ve tripped over a tree trunk and twisted my ankle, of course, as all females must do when we’re being chased. It’s chromosomal. We can’t help it.
Of course, the good news is that I’ll find an important computer, guess the password in three tries, access a remarkably user-friendly and large-print software program that automatically displays crucial crime-related files, and download it all to my one trusted ally (the wise-cracking computer hacker). But when the wise-cracking computer hacker turns out to be the international assassin’s long-lost son, I’ll be torn between doing the right thing (reuniting father and son) and the other right thing (saving millions of innocent lives, thwarting the international security meltdown, and turning the assassin over to the FBI/CIA for justice).
I do NOT have time for this. I have work to do. I have deadlines. And my husband will not appreciate a flirtatious, good-looking detective (or pool-boy) hanging around the back door.
So whoever belongs to these keys… could you please just call me so I can give them back to you?
Thanks.
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