Title:  Key Rules

Couple:  Val/Jon

warnings: none

Implement:  hand, although mostly implied

 

 

 

I carefully negotiated my way down the front walk towards the car mostly going by feel and instinct than sight, since the massive flower arrangement I was carrying blocked my view. 

 

“Val I think I could manage the front walk a lot easier, if you had purchased a slightly smaller arrangement for your mother,” I said to Val who was walking with a fruit tray just ahead of me.  While I couldn’t actually see him roll his eyes at me, I was certain he was doing it.  I had been teasing him mercilessly since he brought the arrangement home that afternoon to give to his mother for her birthday.

 

“You know Val, this arrangement is bigger than the floral sprays you see at funerals.  If you aren’t careful, your mother is going to think you are dropping hints about your inheritance.”

 

“Just drop it!”  Exasperation was definitely coming out in his voice.  “Mom likes flowers. I ordered flowers.”  This was the problem, and why Val ended up with the gigantic flower arrangement instead of a very nice, but normal sized one.  Val hates shopping, any kind of shopping. The less work he has to do when shopping, the happier he is, so instead of taking time to be specific with the florists, he just gave them an amount and a desired pick up date.  With little guidance and a pile of money to burn, the florists went to town and created the colossal arrangement I was currently carrying.  And it isn’t that there was necessarily anything wrong with it-it would have been fine for a funeral or some event where giant sized flower arrangements could be expected, but this was a birthday gift for his mother.  She didn’t have anywhere to put it, and have it look normal. It wouldn’t even work as a center piece on a table it was so large.

 

I sensed more than saw Val stop just ahead of me, and shifted the arrangement just enough to realize we had finally reached the car.

 

“Here, hold this,” I heard Val say, and before I could respond he placed the large fruit platter he had been carrying in one of my hands.  Then I heard him gently patting his pants pockets.

 

I stood there carefully balancing a flower arrangement in one hand, and a fruit platter in the other, which is much more difficult than you might imagine, given the size of the flowers and the fruit platter.  It wasn’t that either was especially heavy, but they were bulky, which made them difficult to hold comfortably at the same time.  I thought about putting one or the other on the car roof, but with both items in my hands, I couldn’t see the car, much less maneuver myself close enough to put something on it without risking dropping it or permanently injuring myself.  So I stood there as the muscles in my arms started to tighten in protest while Val futilely searched for his keys.

 

“Crap!  I don’t have my keys, hang on a second while I run in and get them,” he said as he turned to go back into the house at a quick trot.

 

“Hey, wait!  Um . . .Val?  I can’t see, and these are heavy,” I tried to get his attention, but he was a man on a mission after his keys.  Keys?  Did he say keys?  I couldn’t believe Val had lost his keys.  If it had been a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have found it nearly as interesting, but just a few weeks ago a new rule was born in the Mitchell-Lawrence household-a rule about keys.

 

The rule didn’t just show up one day out of nowhere.  It gradually developed over time, and finally came to head when I lost my keys four times over the course of a single week.  So now losing keys isn’t just frowned upon in our house, it isn’t tolerated at all.  It is now a “go straight to a spanking, do not pass go, and do not collect two hundred dollars” type rule.  No exceptions.

 

Like I said, the rule didn’t come out of nowhere.  It wasn’t like Val woke up one morning and decided we needed a rule about keys.  Really other than some of the more obvious rules, most rules in our relationship didn’t come out of nowhere.  Just like a newborn baby doesn’t just show up by stork delivery on the doorstep, most rules didn’t either.  This one in particular was probably a longer time coming than it should have been.

 

You see, I am not always the most organized person.  I tend to be absent minded and forgetful, basically I am a scatter brain.  Before meeting Val I had a long habit of tossing things just anywhere, and then not knowing where I had left them when I needed them again.  Moving in with Val helped fix some of this-mostly because he is very much an “a place for everything and everything in its place” sort of guy.  I gradually adjusted, sometimes with a little encouragement from Val, to this style of living in almost everything but keys.  I can’t explain why I found putting my shoes, coat, and various household items where they went was an easy enough adjustment, but keys were not. 

 

Keys. Such little things, they would almost seem insignificant given their size, except that they did some very important things-like opening doors and lockers or starting cars-especially starting cars.  But being little things, they had a nasty habit of easily vanishing.  They could fall out of pockets, or off tables and other surfaces.  They could be easily buried under other, larger things.  They could get left in unusual places or worse they could work their way into small crevices, nooks and crannies. If anyone was a master at losing keys, it would be me.

 

In the beginning the tendency to lose my keys was something that caused the occasional frown from Val or sometimes a mild comment about being more careful where I left them-often accompanied by suggestions of where I should leave them. Then later Val might use some mild disciplinary measures to reinforce the suggestions.  For a while I would work harder to keep up with them and had some success, but then I would slip back into old habits and start leaving them wherever.  For a pretty long time I managed to keep the lapses far enough apart that Val didn’t notice it enough to consider the problem a major one. 

 

But then came the dreaded day about three weeks ago.  It was a Saturday and started like any other day.  Val probably wouldn’t have noted the loss of my keys, except for the fact that he had the day off and I didn’t.  I was already running a smidgen late, and went to get my keys off the kitchen counter, where I thought I had left them the day before.  Key word was I thought.  Val took notice of my frantic searching but wasn’t much help, when it came to finding them.  I finally located them on top of the washer, hiding under a stack of neatly folded dish towels.  I managed to find them before their loss made me late for work, but soon enough for Val to give me a few reminders of where my keys belonged before I left.  I managed to avoid getting into major trouble that day, but the damage was done-Val was taking notes.

 

Sunday and Monday passed without incident, and for those two days I was very diligent about keeping up with where I had left them.  I thought I had dodged a bullet, but then came Tuesday. 

 

I went to go grab the keys off the rack by the door on my way to work-they weren’t there.  Damn!

 

I went and checked my dresser-no keys there either.  I was frantically searching through the couch cushions, when Val spotted me.  I could tell by the look on his face that he had me in his sights and the bullet was going to hit dead center.  Val helped me backtrack enough to figure out where the keys were hiding. It turned out that they were in the pocket of the coat I had been wearing the day before. 

 

I left the house that morning with keys in hand, and luckily once again not late for work, but also with the promise that we would discuss the lost keys that night.  Work pretty much sucked that day, because at the back of my head I couldn’t help but wonder just how much trouble I was in and just what form the discussion was going to take.  I ended up spending a good portion of the evening writing lines-and with Val’s promise that my problem with my keys was about to land me in deeper water if it continued to happen.

 

You might think that would’ve been enough to set me right on the straight and narrow, and normally it might have, had my propensity to lose track of time not gotten in the way of good sense on Thursday.

 

Thursday.  The day, at least in the life of Jonathan Lawrence, that would go down in infamy.  Val had an early appointment and left early.  I was up earlier than usual and noticed I had about a half hour before I needed to leave, so I thought I would quickly check a few emails.  That was a mistake, since I got a little carried away and the quick check turned into 45 minutes.  I had just enough time to get to work with a few minutes to spare when I got up from the computer.  I went to grab my keys off the key rack by the door-no keys.  I ran back to the bedroom to look on the dresser-no keys.  I glanced at the clock-and knew I had just enough time to get to work if I left the house right then, but without keys there would be no leaving and I would miss my first appointment, and I was booked solid that day-I didn’t have any cushion to make up lost time or a missed appointment. 

 

I muttered several other slightly strong expletives as I frantically searched the bedroom trying to find my keys.  I was running like a mad man through the house looking for them, when my eyes saw the valet key that came with the car hanging from the rack.  Shit, why hadn't I thought of the valet key already.  I quickly grabbed the key and ran out the door to my car, figuring I could locate my missing keys when I got home.  I wish I could say I felt guilty about losing my keys again, but the day was so busy that all thoughts of keys, and the fact that Val had promised to notch the discipline up didn’t really cross my mind-I didn’t have time to think about it.  The whole key incident that morning just slipped completely from my mind and it stayed that way even after I got home.

 

I had forgotten, mostly because the evening hadn’t gotten any less hectic.  I ended up having to pick up Val from work, because he noticed a funny noise in the brakes and he wanted to drop the Jeep off at the shop for a late appointment.  By the time we got home and ate dinner, I still hadn’t thought about losing another set of keys-I didn’t even think about looking for them or really anything to do with keys. 

 

Later that evening Val got a call from the shop, and they said the brakes had been fixed and the Jeep was fine to drive.  We decided to just get up early the next morning to pick it up. I would take Val down to the shop, he would pick his car up, and we would both go to our respective jobs from there.  Which was a good plan, had it not been for my problem with keys.

 

Then came Friday. If it wasn’t for the fact that the calendar in the kitchen said it was the 12th I would have sworn it was really the 13th.  The “should’ve been” Friday the 13th started off bad and only got worse.  First we overslept, because we forgot to change the setting on the alarm clock.  It wasn’t too late, but it did mean we would have to rush through the morning routine to get to the shop in time.  We both quickly got dressed and wolfed down our breakfast then started to head out to the car when disaster struck. I realized my keys weren’t hanging on the rack by the door.   Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I thought to myself, then my brain desperately started trying to figure out just where I had left my keys.  I was almost certain I hadn’t put them on the dresser, because I didn’t remember seeing them but I ran back to our bedroom to check hoping I could find them quickly.

 

“Jon, where are you going, we need to leave?”  I heard Val call from the living room.  The last thing I wanted to do was tell Val I didn’t know where my keys were.  I looked on the dresser.  No keys.  Shit!  It was time to confess to Val.

 

“Um, Val, I uh can’t find my keys.”  I said as I walked out into the living room.

 

 

 

“Why?”  Of course he would ask that question.  It was a shame I didn't have an answer.

 

“I don’t know why, they just aren’t where they should be. I guess I forgot to put them there.”  Really bad excuse, and one I knew Val wasn’t going to buy, but I had to say something. 

 

“Damn!” I heard him mutter.  “We need to be at the shop right now.”  Then I saw his eyes light up as he turned and left the bedroom.  Then my fate was sealed, when I heard him call back towards the bedroom.  “Jon, do you know where the valet key is to your car?”  Fuck!  It couldn’t be any worse than that-not only had I lost my keys, but I had also managed to lose the damn valet key as well.

 

I was at a complete loss of words-and the last thing I wanted to do was tell Val I had lost both sets over the course of 24 hours.  I was still trying to come up with a good explanation, when Val came back into the room.

 

“Well, um, . . . you see I,” what followed that last bit was a major rush of gobbledygook i.e. verbal diarrhea explaining what had happened.  Amazingly enough Val could speak fluent gobbledygook and somehow figured out that I had managed to lose both sets of keys.  I could see fire in his eyes at that point.  Val didn’t get mad often, and he didn’t really yell or anything when he was mad, but a mad Val was definitely something to be avoided. 

 

“How did you manage to lose two sets of keys?  Never mind, I don’t even want to know right now how you managed.  Right now we need to find one of those two sets, and we WILL discuss this tonight.  Now any ideas where you may have left either set of keys?  When was the last time you remember having them, what were you doing, what room were you in?”  The questions came rapidly.  His voice was calm, but I could tell he was pissed.  The fire in his eyes, the way he held his body all stiff, and the short clipped tone in his voice all spoke to just how mad he was.

 

 At that point no matter when we found the keys, we were both going to be late for work.  And Val doesn’t do late.  If Val was the dictator of his very own kingdom tardiness would carry the death penalty.  Thankfully I wasn’t in any danger of losing my head, but I was pretty certain at that point that my butt was headed for disaster. 

 

“Come on Jon, think-where do you remember last having the keys.” 

 

I started to think back.  “Okay, okay, let me see.  I know I drove home in my car.  And I know on Wednesday I had stopped by the grocery store on the way home.”  I shut my eyes trying to visualize it.  “I know!  I put the keys in my jeans pocket, because I was carrying a bag of dog food and needed both hands for that.”  I opened my eyes.

 

“Did you check the hamper yesterday?” he asked.  I shook my head in the negative.

 

“No, I don't think so, or at least I don’t remember.”  We both went over to the hamper in the bedroom, no keys.  Not even any clothes.  Val stood up and lightly smacked his forehead.

 

“The hamper.  I washed clothes yesterday, and emptied the hamper.”  We started towards the laundry room.  “No, wait, Jon, you go look in your drawer for the jeans you were wearing and check the pockets-they may still be in the pocket, I will check the laundry room.”  We both went off to do our respective searches, and a few seconds later Val yelled that he found them in the washer.

 

As I drove the car to the shop, Val called his secretary and my shop to let them know we would both be a bit late. 

 

All day at work I was extremely torn.  Torn between wanting the work day to end quickly, so I could get it all over with, and wanting it to stretch as long as possible so I could avoid the spanking I knew was coming.  I had no doubt that a spanking was where things were headed.  Not only had I lost two sets of keys in two days, but I had made not only myself but Val late for work in the process and like I said Val doesn’t do late.  Ever.

 

That night our new rule was born.  Val pointed out that I had developed a nasty habit of losing keys-as if I hadn’t noticed-and that habit was starting to interfere with work-it was.  Then he laid out our brand new rule.  Basically I had three approved places, and only three places where my keys could be.  On the rack by the door.  In the dish on top of my dresser or in my pants pocket, and the pants pocket only worked if I was wearing them.  Oh, and coat pockets didn’t count either.  If I lost my keys, or my keys turned up in any place other than those three places I was going to get spanked-period.  There would be no excuses and requests for clemency would not be entertained.  Losing my keys from here on out was a zero tolerance rule.  I didn’t much like the new rule, but I couldn’t deny my inability to keep up with keys was a problem and I couldn’t argue that it was unfair.  Val had given me plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to fix the problem, but I guess I needed a little more motivation. 

 

After the birth of our new rule, Val gave me the spanking I had been expecting all day.  I knew it was coming, and I expected it to be a bad one and it was.  Val didn’t show any mercy that night.  He was determined to make the point, and make it he did.  I was still remembering and thinking about the new rule and lost keys, as I juggled and balanced the platter and flowers waiting for Val to return.  I was only a teeny bit resentful that Val had misplaced his keys, when I wasn’t allowed to, but only a teeny bit.   I heard the garage door shut and the jingle of keys behind me.  As I heard Val approach, I griped at him.

 

“You know, it isn’t fair, if I had lost my keys, I would be in trouble right now.”  It was kind of hard to communicate my feelings with a fruit platter in one hand a huge flower arrangement in the other.  Val probably couldn’t even see my facial expression, and forget body language.

 

“Enough.”  Val said, as he lifted the fruit platter out of my hands and put it in the car.  “I didn’t lose my keys, I left them inside hanging on the key rack, where they belong.  Now get in the car, we’re running late,” he said with a smile as he took the flower arrangement and added that to the back seat.  Than he leaned in to butter me up with a kiss.

 

 

“But Val,” I said as I sat down in the passenger seat.  He shot me a drop it look as he got in the car and started it.  I opened my mouth to give the argument one more try, but I had barely opened my mouth when he said with a gentle smile.

 

“Don’t even try to argue what just happened is the same as you losing your keys-four times in a single week I might add.  That doesn’t include all the other times you lost them.  How often have I lost my keys in your memory?”  I racked my brain, I tried really hard, but I couldn’t come up with a single time.

 

“Never?”  I responded with a subtle smile.  He nodded, and raised his eyebrow.  “Okay, okay, point taken, they aren’t the same.”  I fiddled with the buttons on the radio station trying to find something to listen to.  After successfully finding something tolerable to both of us I looked over at him with a grin on my face.

 

“You know Val, if you didn’t have your keys, you could have just asked for mine-I knew exactly where they were.”  As I patted my right front pants pocket. 

 

the end