A few years ago, I flushed my cell phone down my toilet. Please don’t ask, it wasn’t on purpose. A couple of days later, the plumber was summoned to remove it as my toilet was, well let’s just say it wasn’t working properly. $100 later, my phone was retrieved from the trap.
What was really amazing is that I was able to salvage the SD card by drying it out. No, I didn’t actually use it again, but I was able to copy all the pictures off my phone. That was a good day. Sure I had to replace the phone, but we all know that feeling when you lose irreplaceable pictures.
Today, I did something that makes me feel worse.
I flushed my keys down a public toilet. Not so bad, right? Sitting in a restaurant with your best friend, locked car in the parking lot. No car key. No house key; which as luck would have it is where your spare car key is. I will admit the manager of the restaurant was great. Found a hanger and attempted to “fish” out my keys, without success. See, they have these super duper power flushing toilets that restaurants seem to like. Probably saves them a ton of money on plumbing bills. So my keys were long gone into the deep sewer abyss.
I got a ride home, got in the house, and a ride back to my car. Somewhere it hit me; I had the key to my mom’s house on that ring. It’s really not replaceable. It was one of those pretty flowered keys that I had cut for her. I kept it when she died. It made me smile to think of her, which is probably why I’ve been carrying it around for 15 years. Sadness kicked in.
Then I remembered my key chain. Tiffany’s! Damn! But wait, that was a gift from my ex-husband and suddenly I didn’t feel so bad after all. Perhaps the world was telling me something.
Memories aren’t in the photos or the tangible items we so desperately cling to. They’re in our hearts, either popping into view when you least expect it or available when you need them. So I bid farewell to my expensive key chain and the sentimental key. Perhaps 100+ years from now, it will be discovered by an archaeologist or some kid in their back yard. The thought of that brings a smile to my face.
The memories, well they’re still intact and won’t be going anywhere soon.
