The Return of the Missing Keys

It's the same old story. My father can't find his keys. He's checked the kitchen. The den. The court yard. And, of course, his room. 

Many, many times.

"Somebody's gone into my room," he'll say. "I can tell."

"Nobody's gone into your room, pop," I'll say.

"I can tell."

"How can you tell?"

"I just can," he'll say, and then he'll look me right in the eye. "I don't know who, but somebody's been in my room. And they took my keys."

I don't know why he looks at me when he says that. Does he think it's me who sneaks into his room for no good reason to steal his keys for no good reason? 

I don't know why he would.

My father is only two places at any given time: he's in his room, or he's in the den hogging the TV. He can pretty much see anybody who would leave our house and go into his. Besides which, I don't know why the fact that he (or my wife) always seems to find his keys (usually in a pair of discarded pants) doesn't make his first response be that his keys are just misplaced, not stolen.

He's even blamed his two-year-old great-grandson. He knows (KNOWS, I tell you) that the little guy takes his keys.

"He must have snuck into my room while I was watching the baseball game," he'll say. "Why don't you guys watch him better?"

I bristle at those kind of comments. First off, the baby is never out of anyone's sight, and secondly, the baby isn't allowed in my father's room. Besides which, the logistics of the baby sneaking out of our house, sneaking into the guest house, absconding with my father's link of keys, and then successfully making his escape.

Well, let's just say I'd sooner believe my father's a back-up dancer for Lady Gaga.

But the main reason it's not possible my grandson takes his keys is my father uses them in the morning when he goes on his walks, and the naughty two-year-old is usually off stealing cars at that time.

Of course, I jest.

My father will go on about it so much that I'll get to the point of defending the poor kid's honesty, but my wife will put a subtle hand on my knee, and I'll leave it at that. There's no reason to reason with him. He'll think his keys have been stolen, until he finds them, and then he'll shake his head, chuckle, and say, "Er... ahhh... they were in my pants after all."

That happens so often I don't know why his pants aren't the first place he looks.

Right now my wife and I are watching Olympic Highlights on some streaming service. I think it has something to do with the upcoming 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Anyway, I'm admiring the skimpy uniforms of the female beach volleyball players. 

Don't judge me. 

It wasn't my idea. 

My wife was already watching the highlights when I came into the room. She likes to watch reality TV programing about competition.

"Yes, dear," I'll agree with my wife, pretending to be disgusted. "Those costumes are way too revealing for a world-wide audience."

I'm careful not to drool when I say this.

Basically, I'm just minding my own business when I notice my father walking into the kitchen, mumbling something about his keys.

He laughs, looks down, and shakes his head.

"That little guy," he chuckles, and makes his smacking noise. Smack, smack, smack! "That little guy took my keys."

"What?" I ask him, although I know better.

"What?"

"What did you say?"

"What did I say?"

"What did you say about the keys?"

"What did I say about the keys?"

"You were saying something about your keys."

"Oh, yeah," smack! "That little guy, he... he... ahhh, I had the keys when he grabbed them from me."

"The baby took your keys?"

"He was so fast, so fast."

"The baby took your keys?" I ask him again. It was my turn to repeat myself.

"Yeah, that little guy grabbed the keys and took off running. He was so fast, and now he lost them." 

Smack, smack, smack!

"The baby's not even here. How could he take the key from you?"

"I don't mean now, I mean earlier."

"Why didn't you tell us then?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell us then? When he took your keys?"

"What?"

I had to change direction.

"How could the baby take the keys from you?" I asked my father. I almost laughed at the image of a two-year-old child snatching the keys out of a grown man's hand, and then torturing him with a noogie on the top of his head for good measure.

"What?"

"How could the baby take the keys from you?" I ask him again. "What was he even doing in your room?"

"I don't know how he took the keys from me, he just did. He was so fast."

"Well, what was he doing in your room?"

"I don't know what he was doing in my room, he just was. And now there's no idea what he did with them. He's lost them."

It's not that I don't believe him when he says a toddler was able to snatch something out of his hand like Kwai Chang Cane in the classic TV show Kung Fu, it's just that I don't believe a 2 year-old could snatch something out of man's hand, even if that man is in his nineties. I don't know what really happened, but I find that particular scenario pretty farfetched.

I was going to ask him that if the baby took the keys from him, why didn't he just take them right back. Or how the baby was able to get into his room in the first place. Or how the baby was able to get away. Or why didn't he just tell us about it when it happened. 

Or... or... or...

Please, if my grandson had taken my father's keys we would have heard about it. My father gets a little nervous around him. As soon as the baby gets close to him, we hear about it. There's probably a dozen reasons why my father gets nervous. None of which I'll bore you with right now. What it comes down to is this:

The poor baby is too young to defend himself, and my father is too old to be interrogated.