Oops!

I know I haven't written in a while, but I just haven't had anything extremely interesting to write about, not that my previous posts were all that interesting either!! In any case, I decided it was time to write again and I have just the story to share...

So last night David and I were at Costco and our friend Pallavi called. We haven't seen her in a while and were just talking about trying to set up a dinner with her and Martin (her boyfriend) in the next couple weeks; anyway she said she'd been working really long hours, which she often does and just hasn't been around, but she got off at a decent time and wanted to see if we could meet for her dinner. We, of course, said SURE!

We picked her up and decided to go to a South American restaurant over in the Bucktown neighborhood. Not that it matters, but for those non-Chicagoan's, Bucktown is pretty much directly West and slightly to the North of downtown Chicago by about 2 miles or so.

We parked the car and here's the interesting part...I locked the doors and started walking to the rear of car where Pallavi and David were waiting and I dropped my car key. Now, you might be saying what's so interesting about that? Well, you're right, usually this wouldn't be a big deal...BUT my car key is one of those kind that's basically just a square, then it has a button on the corner that you push to release the stick part that actually goes into the ignition. Currently it's not attached to my house keys. I removed it a while back when I had my car in the shop and it's difficult to get back onto the key ring so I just haven't gotten around to putting it back on. A decision I would regret today because when it hit the ground it started to slide as the road sort of curved downward towards the gutter; I tried to stop it with my foot, but missed, then Pallavi tried to stop it with her foot and missed, David then tried to stop it, but it was too late...it slid too fast, right through a hole in the gutter grate!!!

CRAP! We were all sort of stunned for a few seconds, at least I was. I kept thinking did my key really just fall into the sewer? I had no idea what to do, I had no idea how deep this hole was and if we'd be able to get it out? I don't have a secondary key so I kept having visions of having to call the city, them having to send someone into the sewer to retreive it or use all this major equipment and it costing me a fortune!! Then I thought well, it's going to be expensive anyway because it's one of those square kind, it's not like you can just go to a locksmith and have them make you new key either! You have to order it through a dealership or through VW and they are like $100!!

After a few minutes of trying to figure out what to do. David and his super-human strength was able to get the iron grate off the hole and we looked down into the darkness. Fortunately, it was only about 4 or 5 feet deep and we could see my key leaning up again one side of the gutter wall. Now, it may have only been 4 feet deep, but too deep to just lean down, reach in and get it AND we didn't want to jump in, because we had no idea if the base was solid or soft or how deep it could go under all the sediment? Plus, it was just gross. I wouldn't want to get in there, nor would I want David or Pallavi to get in there either so Pallavi volunteered to go into the nearby restaurant to see if they had some kind of tool that would long enough to fish it out. In the meantime, some people playing catch with a football came over to see what we were doing and had the thought to grab some wire hangers. One of them unfolded the hanger and dipped it into the big hole. There is small opening one end of the key, but the reason I never put it back on the keyring is because it's really hard to even get a small key ring through it so I wasn't sure the hanger would fit through it. Thankfully...IT DID! and he lifted the key out to safety!!

We thanked them a million times and headed off to dinner, which by the way, was super yummy!

Moral of the story...Procrastination is bad and no matter how difficult a task might seem, it's better to get it done and avoid having to jump into the sewer!

~Kelli