How Much Room Could It Take Up, Really?

Genius the absentminded professor is home for a couple of days. Barely.

I knew he was driving in from college yesterday. He's been on a trip with the solar car team since last Thursday. After a one-day turnaround, he said he'd be here Tuesday evening, maybe 4:00 or 5:00. Since I had conferences at school, I told him he'd be on his own until I got home around 8:00. I asked if he would drop by and pick up The Pony, since he would be passing within 50 yards of my school building as he buzzed down the two-lane highway with my new used $600 color laser printer than he got me for $40.

That was too much to ask, of course. So to stop the gale force wind of his heavy sigh from coming through the phone and bursting my eardrum, I told him to forget it. The Pony was okay with hanging out in the math lab, computing and texting, until I could leave. Besides, he was getting a Chinese carryout supper with the faculty. Which took the sting out of his first conference night where his grandma didn't pick him up after school and whisk him away to her house for high-speed internet and buttered noodles.

So there I sat Tuesday morning, not even halfway through my 12-hour day, verbally jousting with freshmen to elicit a quality product from the education assembly line, when my phone rang. Not my cell phone. Like smokin' in the boys' room, that's against the rules. The school line. I assumed it would be the office, requesting this one or that one to grace them with his presence. But no. As I picked up the receiver, I saw Genius's name appear in the caller area.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Yeah...are you all right?"

"Um. Yeah. I'm okay. I can't get in the house. I don't have a key. I took it off my keyring because I didn't have room, and I thought about it as I was driving back from Michigan, but then I still forgot to put it back on before I started home."

"Well...you can look in the secret hiding place. We still have one door that goes with that key, even though we changed the other locks. I guess that key is still there. I sure didn't remove it. You'll have to crawl. Maybe through cat poop. You remember, don't you? When you were little, I had to send you to get it."

"I know where it should be. I think. But not which side of the corner."

"You'll just have to look. If you don't want to crawl, I guess you could push in that lattice, and we'll repair it later. The only other thing is to drive back over here to get my key. Or to your aunt's house. She will have our key on Grandma's keyring. But that's only a couple miles from here."

"I didn't really want to drive all the way back there. I'll see if I can find the key."

Thirty minutes later, there was Genius knock knock knocking at Val's classroom door. I talked to him a few moments. He said he might go visit a couple of teachers while he was there. I told him to make sure he checked in with the office. He went out the door and turned back to grab it just before it locked him out. He looked across the room at me and ducked his head.

"I forgot. The key." He opened up my cabinet and removed it from my keyring.

I hope the solar car team sticks a spare up under the fender in a magnetic box.