the almost several hundred dollar Cheetos

My last post was about Logan, and his whirlwind two year old ways. He is a little tornado of chaos, and can dissassemble a room in five minutes flat.

So this morning, when Andrew was trying to head out for work and couldn't find his car keys, naturally we blamed Logan. He tends to pick up things. Things that don't belong to him. And drop them, stick them, bury them, hide them, into one of his bazillion special secret places. So the search began. All drawers, inside shoes, backpacks, clothing, the washer, the dryer, under furniture, inside vases and toys with compartments.. Nothing, nada, no keys.

I headed out to take Logan to gym class, leaving Andrew here to carry on the search. Surely, he'd find them. We arrived home an hour later and still no keys. More searching. More obscure places... inside game boxes, through the kitchen trash and the trash dumpster by the curb for trash day...

Andrew has two spare keys to his car, but being a VW, the spare keys just can't WORK and START THE CAR. They have to be taken to the dealership to be coded first. Except the FRIGGIN car WON'T START without KEYS, so tow trucks would have to be involved. Easily this was turning into a several hundred dollar problem. We'd ask Logan where he put daddy's keys, and he'd just smile and answer "keys?".

Finally, we decide that Logan and I will drive Andrew to work (at this point Dylan is at school) so he can at least get something done. And meanwhile, I'd go back home and look some more. Andrew contacts a locksmith, only to learn no one has the VW software to code the keys remotely. If the guy comes, there is a 50/50 chance he can get the spare to work. And even if he can't get it to work, we still have to pay him.

I continue searching, while Andrew, at work, continues calling more locksmiths. I look everywhere I can possibly think of. Inside pots and pans, empty every single toy bin all over the house and put toys back one by one, under every couch and chair cushion, rip through both of our cars, look into the duct work after pulling out the air vents (Logan is in there all the time hiding stuff).

Finally I call Andrew. Its no use, we've looked everywhere and they are just gone. Vanished. So we spend some time cursing out VW for being so jack ass about not coding spare keys for owners in case of a situation like this. We're about to hang up so Andrew can call a tow truck and have his car towed the the VW dealer. I'm searching thru the grocery bag bin in the pantry, just in case they got tangled up in one of the bags when I got home from the grocery store yesterday.

Not there either. I stand up. And out of the corner of my eye I see them. The Cheetos. About four shelves up in the pantry - way too high for Logan to reach so I never even looked there. The Cheetos have a stay fresh clip on them, and it has a magnet on the back. The keys are stuck to the magnet, just dangling in mid-air. They must have been laying on the counter yesterday, next to the Cheetos bag I had out during lunch, and gotten stuck to the magnet.

It was the Cheetos fault. Not Logan's. Stupid Cheetos. You're the Keyz-iest.