Keys over the table

We were rushing around one Sunday early to our marriage prepared for a morning of worship. I was peeling potatoes for dinner, tossing necessary items in the baby’s diaper bag, yelling up the stairs at the boys to quit fighting and get dressed. In between all that, I threw a tablecloth over the table and slapped dishes and silverware in place, so we would not have to wait for dinner after we came home.
Finally, we were ready. All the bambinos were dressed in their bib and tucker. Hair plastered in place. Their breakfast of cereal and peanut butter and jam toast washed off.
My husband reached into his pocket for his car keys. They were gone. He was sure he had had them earlier that morning. The kids stood at the door watching us play, “find the keys.”
We only had one key and neither of us could find it. The Sunday School hour went by, the church hour began. No keys.
I gave up and put the finishing touches on dinner.
We ate. The kids and my husband gathered up the dishes and puled the tablecloth off the table. Keys jangled to the floor. In my Sunday morning rush, I had tossed the tablecloth and dishes on top of the car keys and never noticed them.
The next day, my husband came home with four sets of keys and key rings. I hooked them on the Spanish, wrought iron chandelier over the dining room table – out of the reach of eager little fingers.
A few weeks later I lost in a game to find the scissors that the children used in a craft project. I went to town, bought more scissors and hung them on the Spanish chandelier along with the keys and any scissors I subsequently found. That chandelier had a lot of handy hooks; I used everyone of them in their quest to keep track of things.
One evening we had a family with three daughters come to dinner. As we ate, the husband looked up the chandelier, keys and scissors hanging over his head. A pair of scissors aimed at his eye.
“You lose a lot of scissors and keys?”
I followed his gaze and realize and how odd it must appear to have scissors and keys decorating the chandelier.
“Not since we began hanging them up here,” I said, reaching up and unhooking all the scissors. I carried them to the kitchen and promptly lost them in the junk drawer.
Through the years, we added more little fingers to grab the keys adults carelessly laid down on tables, assuming they would be there when they returned. We also lost keys in coat jackets, purses and behind the furniture, but thanks to the chandelier and the extra keys, we could always drive to town and get more.
When we moved to our next house, the dining room chandelier lacked the hooks and curves of its wrought iron counterpart. I bought a key rack and stuck our scissors in the junk drawer. We lost our decorated chandelier but kept track of our keys. Well, we do most of the time, my list of “things to do today” includes “copy the keys.” We are down to three sets, again.