I got up early this morning to meet Gráinne for a walk along the river. She had saved me a piece of chocolate cake from her super-baking session on the weekend, so after our walk, I followed Gráinne riding ahead of me.
At the intersection, I took off, changing gears as the lights turned green. CLUNK, CLUNK, and suddenly, I was pedalling air in the middle of the road. What the–? The green light turned red and I yanked my bike off the road, onto a traffic island so that cars wouldn’t hit me.
I watched Gráinne disappear ahead of me. Inspecting the gears, I realised that the chain had slipped. I couldn’t fix it in the middle of the intersection so at the next red light, I started wheeling the bike in the direction Gráinne had gone.
Finally, I caught up with her. We spent the next ten minutes putting the chain back on both gears. Hands covered in grease, I gingerly poked through my bag looking for my keys to lock up the bike. I gave up, not wanting to cover my things with grease (my jeans already had black smears) and left the bike at the bike racks, unlocked.
In Gráinne’s kitchen, we scrubbed our hands with detergent. She had just taken the cake out when, heart sinking, I discovered that I had lost my keys. They weren’t in my bag or my pockets.
‘Oh no,’ I said.
With the kettle boiling in the background, Gráinne and I thought about what to do. She wrapped my cake up and I put it in my bag. We fetched our bikes and started walking back towards the river, scanning the ground for my keys.
‘I’ve grown up, Gráinne,’ I said. ‘In the past, I would have been panicking by now. I hate losing things.’
‘It’s not so bad when you can replace things,’ she said. ‘The college will give you another key.’
‘And I have an extra bike lock key at home, too.’
‘Do you lose things often?’
‘Yeah. But I’ve been pretty good in the past few months. I lost a sock in the laundry this week. I was so annoyed because I’m really careful. I know socks get left behind in washing machines.’
Gráinne laughed and said, ‘Socks don’t count. They’re always plotting for it, they’re like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.’
We got to where I had locked my bike up before our walk. We hadn’t seen the keys. Plan B was to ask shops along route if someone had handed in bunch of keys this morning. Luckily, at this time of day, few shops were open so we could ask them all.
We asked at three shops, the punting booth and Magdalene College plodge without success. I walked into a second-hand store, where three shopkeepers were having a natter.
‘Hello, did anyone hand in a bunch of keys this morning?’ I asked plaintively.
‘Keys? Sorry dear, no. We’ve just opened up.’
A short blond girl browsing in store said, ‘I think I saw keys. Somewhere there, back there.’
‘Really?! Can you show me where?’ I cried.
I followed her out and we walked for about ten metres before she pointed to a shop window sill.
‘Those ones?’
Yes! My keys! Someone clever had picked them up and put them on the sill and this kind girl had seen them and I had walked into the store she was in and she had heard me and now I had my keys! A miracle!
‘Thank you! Thank you very much!’ I waved the keys at Gráinne, who had been patiently accompanying me in my hunt.
Finally home, I happily unwrapped and ate my chocolate cake. The world was so nice. Unconsciously, I tugged my left ear.
Oh no. My gold earring wasn’t there. I checked my right ear. That one was there.
I bit my lip. Having lost an earring or two when I was younger, I now check them regularly without thinking. I must have lost the earring recently, probably while I was running around fixing bicycles and looking for keys. The earring was more expensive, more difficult to replace than my keys. An earring lost outside is lost forever.
On the chance that it had fallen out at home, I slowly moved around the house, scanning the benches and carpet. Not in the bathroom. Not in the kitchen. Not at my desk. Not on the bedroom floor.
And there it was. On my pillow.
I’m never going to complain about a lost sock again.
