Today’s Monday Musings are rather later in publishing than usual owing to a small problem we’ve experienced this morning, namely the loss of my car keys preventing us from getting to work.
You know that feeling when you lose something important? The feeling as your slightly addled brain tries desperately to retrace your steps and you realise firstly that there aren’t that many places that a key can possibly be and secondly that you probably should have done more with your weekend. After turning the house upside down and checking every possible location (including my most visited spot: the teapot) where a key could possibly be I came agonisingly to the conclusion that the key must have been dropped whilst walking Small Dog the previous evening.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Surely though Small Dog, being an (ahem) loyal, faithful and above all heroic companion would have spotted you had dropped the key and alerted you to the situation?” Well you clearly haven’t met Small Dog. Quite aside from his obvious tendency to willingly accept bad things happening to me, he was probably distracted by the other heroic pursuits my father-in-law assures me he’s always getting up to like rescuing small children who’ve fallen down wells or, you know, peeing on everything to keep away badgers…
But, I thought, perhaps Small Dog could nonetheless be the answer to my problem. Having established that the key was not in his cage nor was it small enough for him to have consumed it we decided to put him to work as we set off re-tracing our steps on the previous night’s walk, our trusty sniffer dog beside us. Instantly Small Dog was muzzle to ground scouring the path intently, his nose twitching away as that powerful nose did its important work. He sniffed and sniffed before racing along before us barking wildly. We raced in pursuit – clearly he had found the lost key.
Or rather he had found a shifty eyed squirrel that he clearly suspected had stolen the key. Or alternatively he’d just found a squirrel. Thanks Small Dog. We continued to trace the path, including the final section where Small Dog and I had raced each other in a great sprint to the finish line the previous day and where I suspected the key may have fallen from my pocket. There was nothing to be found.
Finally in desperation we went to the local police station, possibly the smallest police station in the world as was proven when we discovered that the police were in fact out for lunch. Upon their eventual return though we were greeted with the news that THE KEY HAD BEEN HANDED IN AND ALL WAS SAVED!! Finally I would be able to set off to my exciting destination of… work. Bugger.
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So thank you to the good people of Pickering and specifically the person who found and handed in my key, you’re a wonderful human being (or squirrel if Small Dog’s theory was in fact correct) and have my heartfelt gratitude. The moral of this story though is if you need a sniffer dog, Small Dog is not to be trusted, and more importantly no good can EVER come of running.
Time for a celebratory bacon sandwich methinks… much safer.
