Upon relating my absent-minded behavior of the prior evening to a dear friend of mine, she insisted that I publicly and shamelessly indignify myself to the world by posting what happened, here….on my blog.

Are you feelin’ the love? I know I am. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, and as a testament to the fact that we all occasionally try to shove our heads up our respective posterior orifices… here is my story.

In preparation for the upcoming camping trip on Friday, my dear wife stopped by her mom’s house to pick up a brand new family sized tent that had been in storage for some time. My mother-in-law had won it at a raffle or whatnot some time back, but didn’t really have much use for it… so now it has become ours. New + Free = Happy Jason.

At any rate, the wifey and I had the foresight to pre-assemble the tent at the house prior to getting all the way down to our campsite and finding out that something was wrong or missing. As luck would have it, everything works like a charm! After assembling the tent and checking out all of the neat little gadgets included with our high-tech-portable-hut….I was informed that supper was ready, and to come inside the house. This is where the insult to intelligence began…

You see, there are two mesh pockets provided within the tent to place belongings in. This keeps sharp objects and loose personal effects from rolling around the floor of the tent (which can cause injury to the user or the tent itself, if rolled on or trampled on). There are also a few utility loops sewn into the walls as well. It was on one of these little loops that I clipped my car keys, so as not to lay on them when we went inside to inspect our little mansion.

They were left hanging in the tent when I went inside. After supper, I cleaned the kitchen up and told the dear wife that I was going to pack the tent back up and put it inside the tote bag it came in. I disassembled the tent, stakes, bow rods, rain fly, and equipment loft. I packed everything up nice and neat, and she helped me roll up the tent and pack it away. Everything tucked into the tote nice and neat.

Well……yesterday, at some point, our illustrious and infallible power company provided us with a nice power blink. I noticed, upon my arrival home, that everything that plugged into a wall and which possessed a digital clock…was blinking the “eternal 12:00” hour. At bedtime, I set the clock at my bedside to the proper time (mainly because I’ve neglected to replace the backup battery several times now due to forgetfulness.) and set my alarm to wake me up at 5:30am….or so I thought.

At approximately 6:00am, my wife wakes me and informs me of the time. I typically leave the house no later than 6:30 in order to arrive at work before 7:00am (clock in time). So, this gave me only 30 minutes (versus the hour I’d planned for) to get ready. All went fine and I was ready to start my truck….but where were my keys?

I looked high and low…retraced my steps….checked everywhere I typically lay my keys (as the clock ticked). I looked in my dad’s shop, my office, key rack, kitchen counter, bathroom, bedroom…nothing.
Well, it was now 6:30am and time to leave. Still no keys. Then it hit me. Could I have been that forgetful? The answer would soon come to me.

I had been asked not to wake my dear wife when I left for work today, because she had been given a day off from work as a “thank you” for putting in valuable time at her job. I’d already forced her to wake ME up this morning from me obviously setting the alarm for pm instead of am. Now I was about to wake her again by having to rustle through a folded up tent. I did…and she asked me what in the hell I was doing.
After telling her, she shook her head and let me continue my search.

I found them, still attached to the loop inside the tent, and promptly set off for my truck. I arrived and clocked in…at 7:04am. Granted, it’s a Tuesday… but it’s the second “Monday” of the week for me. As the great Paul Harvey says…

“And now you know…the rest…of the story.”