The Kitchen Cabinet of Death

You're close. The lids are in collusion with all of my missing left socks. The latter part, it happens in one of two ways. Scenario 1) You peel your socks off after a long hike and toss them in the washing machine. You physically see them with your own eyes in the bottom of said washing machine. You throw in your other stuff from the laundry basket. You take wash out to put it all in the dryer, sock is AWOL. WHAT THE FRIG?! Scenario 2) Same thing, only this time, the sock makes it into the dryer. You take everything out to fold your warm, toasty stuff, sock is AWOL. WHAT THE FRIG?! Scenario 3) Both scenarios will lather, rinse, repeat until YOU DIE.

It's a secret lid/sock army, I tell ya. Could be a covert spy operation, and you get to open the door of that ditto highly covert storage building with MISSING KEYS, keys that don't fit shit, and keys that you can't remember what they belong to. Here's a hot one. When my Mom found out she was terminal, she said I want you to come with me to Key Bank ("Key Bank", haha). She tells me I want to take everything out of my safety deposit box and give it to you now because you'll never be able to get it out after I die no matter what kind of proof you give them (she was right, feel free to go to spoiler paragraph below). So anyway, she has two keys, I sign a paper that she gives her consent that I can have one of the keys, show my ID, get some chit notarized, Mom takes everything out and we dump it into a Shoprite paper bag but don't officially close the box in case I need to throw some lint in there. The contents were mostly important documents, but also a few pieces of really old, stellar family jewelry that her and my recently deceased Daddy wanted me to guard with my life for highly sentimental reasons.

Now you have to understand her mentality on this. My Grandpa (her father), was way smart. He was a barber, his brother was an upholsterer. My grandfather didn't trust the banks. Right before the stock market crash of 1929, he had his upholsterer brother expertly sew up all of the cash that he had saved and hidden in kitchen cabinets and clandestine places that thieves would never think to look. Market crashes, still has money. A few years later, has money sewn into another mattress. WWII rolls around, he was 39, but doesn't get drafted because he's color blind. Gets money expertly slit out of that mattress, buys a shit ton of ward bonds, has his brother sew bonds back into mattress. Years later he passes away. War bonds get divided up between my Mom, her brother, and her two sisters. My Mom cashes in her share of war bonds, and I got to college without a loan. Thanks, Grandpa! That's a true story, and like I always say, all of my stories are true. Because they are. I loved my grandfather. He's been gone now for 40 years and we STILL talk about him because he was such a character. I'm gonna start a short story/vignettes thread soon. That's the other thing I do with my kooky post-coma brain: write in states of hypergraphia because brain.

So, to bring this full circle, the safety deposit box is considered abandoned after seven years. I kind of forgot about it, but one day found the key in a Grandpa like place that I'd hidden it, still in its small Key Bank manila envelope with the branch # on it and the box number . I go down there in year six out of curiosity to see if I can open the thing. Or if they'll let me. "That key doesn't belong to us." "Um, envelope?" "That's not ours." "Um, envelope?" "That key won't fit any box here." "Um, envelope, plus here's my ID." "Oh, that account has long since been closed because the owner of the checking account passed away six years ago." "I know that. She was my Mom (explain consent for key and form that THEY notarized so I could have access)." "We changed our keys and lock system last year. You'll have to get a court order." "There's nothing in it." "Court order." "Take your key and shove it KEY BANK!" So as to your alien theory, TWB, not sure who was Agent Mulder or Agent Scully here.

 

Don't ditch it just yet. If you try to open your front door, you'll be screwed, even with the right one. They all jingle along and talk about it together, trust me on it.