The Bermuda Triangle of Lost Keys

I retraced my steps from the parking garage back to my office. I looked on top of and behind my desk. I walked to the front desk and asked the security guard on duty if someone had dropped off a set of keys. He must have thought I had lost my mind the way I was walking around looking in every corner and open room in the building.

Years ago when I worked on a corporate campus I lost my car keys. My wife, after a long day of work, had to drive the 45 minutes to my office to deliver our spare set. I had the keys in the morning when I drove to work. I even remember having them when I got up to leave, but somewhere in the short walk from my office to the garage, I lost them.

Retracing my steps

Now let me say up front, I was juggling more than a few balls at the time and I’m generally not the forgetful sort, so it’s long bothered me that I never found them. I still play the walk out to my car in my head. I was stopped first by my boss’s boss. He asked a quick question about a story I was working on. I remember being excited about the story and telling him an interesting facet that I knew would peak his interest. But that was it, I was on my way again in minutes.

I was stopped a second time by a friend in the main lobby. He was getting pummeled by work demands and I offered a simple word of encouragement. We talked about stopping later in the week to get a beer after work to commiserate and re-energize.

Wait a minute, where’d they go

When I got to my car, though, I reached in my pocket and came up empty. I had my wallet, but no keys. The sky was sunny and clear and I was firmly planted on land, but I somehow entered the mysterious world of the Bermuda Triangle, the 500,000 square mile area in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico that’s known for the puzzling disappearances of ships, planes, and people. Oh, most scientific sources consider the Bermuda Triangle an urban legend, but it still doesn’t explain why so many ships and plane have gone missing in the area.

Like the triangle, the area from my desk to the parking garage somehow stole my keys. When my wife delivered our spare set of keys, I thought for sure I was in some kind of crazy Twilight Zone or modern day Candid Camera. (The Twilight Zone was an American TV show created by Rod Serling where fictional characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering “the Twilight Zone.” Likewise, Candid Camera preceded many of the reality shows you see today and filmed ordinary people via hidden camera being confronted with unusual situations, sometimes involving tricks and props. Program Creator Allen Funt would often surprise the unknowing victims by saying, “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera.”)

I was convinced I would get home and find the keys stuck in some spare pocket of my bag or they would fall out onto the floor when I got changed. Nope, no can do, I never found them. Boy could I have used an Apple AirTag back then!

Lost and Found

I write today in my story Disappearing into Thin Air on The Heart of the Matter on a PowerPoint Deck that I recently lost. Now its disappearance bothered me just like my car keys, but at least with the presentation I knew exactly who to blame. I couldn’t blame the Bermuda Triangle or little space aliens or the cat or dog for eating my homework. I had to blame, well, me! The keys? I knew I had them, but I had no clue what happened to them.

Of course, I never found the keys. They were lost to the Bermuda Triangle of Lost Keys.