Rainy Mishaps

Last night when I got home from work, we decided to head out for dinner at the Big Pink. For some reason, we have never been there, but have seen it many times on tv. They are one of the few places for SOBE residents and reporters to hang out during hurricanes. They also make deliveries in pink Volkswagen Bugs. It is a place that you just can't miss.

As we were crossing the street to go in, we felt a few rain drops so we decided to sit inside. I wondered for a second if we should just head home now because the weather might get worse and we were several blocks from home. Since our food and kitchen items are still packed, we stayed. The food was surprisingly great, much better than the crappy TGI Fridays we had the night before (I'm still not sure why we even went there).

About 10 minutes before we were ready to go, Lexi fell asleep in my arms and I noticed the rain had subsided. We quickly paid, packed up everything (baby stuff & left-overs), and headed out. The rain was light at first, but got worse with each block. By the time we got a block away from the apartment, it was pouring. We were all wet.

We finally got under the cover of the front stoop and Steve began searching for the keys. They weren't in his pocket, they weren't in the diaper bag, they weren't in the stroller, and I didn't have them. He started to get really frustrated and ticked off. Right then, a guy came out of the building and we were able to go into the lobby. I handed Lexi to Steve and looked through the bag and stroller again. I looked at Steve and could tell that he was having nightmarish visions about what we were going to do and how we were going to spend the night (he got the extra potent worry gene from his mom).

It was one of those rare moments when neither of us brought our cell phones or we would have called the restaurant to see if the keys were there. There was no other option, but to go back out in the rain. I told him I would go look in my car because we had them when we got Lexi's stroller out. No luck. I came back and told him I was going to run to the restaurant since I was already dripping wet. During the walk there, I wasn't as nervous as I probably should have been. I walked in and a group of guys were sitting at our table. I asked the waitress, but she hadn't seen them. I walked over to where we had parked the stroller & saw them sitting on the floor where nobody would have looked. I realized right then, that if we had our cell phones we would have been told the keys weren't there. We would have given up on that idea. So, this was a little bit of good luck on a bad luck night.

I ran back to the apartment to find Steve nervously waiting on the front porch with Lexi. I held up the keys like we had won the lottery.

Tags: lost keys, rainy night, SOBE, Big Pink