The Key

This happened in November of last year. My oldest son came for the weekend to go to the MTSU-NC State football game. He swung by the office to get a key to the apartment so he could get some lunch, have a few beers and unwind before heading out for the evening to join his old frat brothers for a night of rowdy debauchery in preparation for the game the following day. I learned along time ago to carry an extra car and house key on my person. Just a little quirk of mine. So when I got home I asked him where the spare key was. He went right to where he "thought" he'd left it but it wasn't there. So I went and checked the door to make sure he hadn't left it in the lock or dropped it outside. When we both came up empty-handed we started a full-scale scouring of the apartment. And I mean we turned that fucking place COMPLETELY upsidedown. We even went so far as to strip my bed. Now, the first place he went to look was on the coffee table I have in front of the TV. During the course of searching we even had the table turned upside down. I even took everything off the top of it and rifled through the book pages, etc. So, when we were tired of looking and it was time for him to go we said to hell with it and I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to run to the hardware the following day to get a new one made. So after he left I parked my ass in my chair, turned on the tube and grabbed a book to read. It was nice having the table cleaned off, as I tend to junk it up with my porn magazines, papers, etc. When I was sufficiently shitfaced tired I put the book down on the table and passed out went to bed. Upon awakening the following morning I got my cup of coffee and wobbled to my chair to watch the Saturday morning litany of useless TV. What I saw on top of the book literally scared the living shit outta my ass. There sat the key, right in the middle of the book. I sat there for about an hour in an almost mystical trance, trying to ponder how such a thing could have happened. When my son came home that evening and related the episode to him he stood there slack-jawed and the only words he could utter were "No Fucking Way". To this day I have no explanation for it. I have ideas, but none that I would ever express to anyone.