The Umbrellas and the Key

We headed south this past Friday evening to do a few things at the beach house. When we got around seventy miles down the road, we realized that we did not bring a KEY to the beach house.

For a few moments, my husband thought that I was kidding. I was not. I had forgotten the key.

I laughed. He got angry.

When we left home, I went back inside two times for things that we had forgotten. As I was leaving (for the third time), I told the house/pet sitter that we were leaving and that if we forgot anything else, it was our own problem. Ha-ha! Little did I know what I was saying.

You see, we always forget something. It is like there is a scientific law for us: The Law of Taking Trips. This time, tough, I realized that I forgot Boy's beach umbrellas. Bummer! Knowing that we forgot the beach umbrellas, though, we should have been safe.

WRONG.

Seemingly, the Law of Taking Trips was faulty. All of these years, knowing that we would always forget something, it turned out that we could, in fact, forget some things.

I phoned a friend of ours, who also happens to be the person who cleans the beach house. You know what that means, right? Yes! She has keys to the house. I got her voice mail and left a message.

For a short while longer, while driving down the highway, my husband was agitated and irritable. Then he turned on the right blinker and drove off of the next exit. When I asked him what he was doing, he said that there was no point to drive all the way down to the house without a key. I said, “We can stay at an hotel.” That did not go over well.

“Sure, because we are made of money!” Let me clarify this for those who do not know us. We have close to half a million hotel points. Money was not the issue because we did not have to spend money to get a hotel room.

Whatever words were said next, I do not remember, but Hubby got back onto the highway and continued driving south. A few minutes later, a different friend from down at the beach phoned. When I told him what happened, he immediately offered to let us stay at his and his wife's place. What a blessing it is to have such an hospitable friend.

After thanking our friend and assuring him that we would phone him if it came to that, I finished the telephone call and looked at my husband. “May I ask you to just choose not to be cranky and to see the humor in this and think of it as an adventure?”

I think that my husband, though frustrated, realized (after I pointed it out) that being angry or upset was not going to fix anything. It was not going to make the key suddenly appear. His jaw seemed to unclench, and he relaxed a bit. It was getting to be that calm and quiet time of the day when the sun sets, yet it is still light outside. I took off my sunglasses and opened the center console to put them away. When I looked into the console, I saw something buried in there which I then felt compelled to grab. It was another set of car keys.

We do not leave keys in that car. Duh. Somehow, though, this set had gotten left in the car. After a quick examination, we saw that this particular set of keys happened to have a key on it that we thought went to the beach house.

How funny is it that as soon as my husband let go of his frustration and made the decision to not be cranky about the situation, it was almost instantly resolved? Yes, when we arrived a few hours later we discovered that that key was for the house. (Thank the Lord!) At around midnight, we entered the house and were able to relax from our journey.

We know that God took care of us Friday night and showed use where there was a key that we needed. How interesting is it that the one time we forgot to bring the keys in the house and left them in the car, it turned out to be part of His plan? He knew that we would need them.

Now I am able to report that the Law of Taking Trips still holds its definition. Thankfully, the beach umbrellas really were all that we were missing, after all. Of course, under the hot, summer sun at the beach, those would really have come in handy.