Coffee

Katie and I are not coffee drinkers. My visiting parents are. This meant I needed to brave the snow covered streets to go get them some - one item, Foldgers coffee. The whole trip should take 11 minutes, even in this weather.

I resisted the impulse to peruse the exotic blends, grabbed the red plastic can and made my way to the counter. A woman with a voice too loud crowded into the lane behind me. As I paid, she moved in. Personal space meant nothing to this woman. No matter, I grabbed the coffee and headed toward the door.

The frosty air smacked me in the face as I hurried outside, as did the realization that my car keys were not in my pocket. They were not on the cashier’s counter, on the floor, in the parking lot, nor behind the damned coffee cans. After 30 minutes, my wife called to see if I had gotten stranded in the snow. I hesitate, not wanting to confess that in a period of 90 seconds I had lost the keys.

I hung up and retraced my steps, yet again. One of the Dahl’s employees found me on my hands and knees in the coffee aisle looking under ancient shelves. The noisy lady who had followed me through the line had called and said she had picked up “somebody’s keys.” “But,” she had continued, “I have been up delivering papers and am just too tired to bring them back to the store.” She informed the employee she would place them in her mailbox and I was welcome to come and get them.

These were my car keys and my magic carpet does not work well in sub-zero weather, so I called home and asked Katie to bring me the spare set. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, the nice Dahl’s employee came out and told me the woman had called back. “I am going to bed, so tell the person coming to get the keys to be quiet so they don’t wake me up,” she said. “Oh, and tell them to leave a note so I know they got the keys and I don’t worry about somebody else making off with them.”

I got the keys, but was just too tired to leave a note. I hate coffee.