The Almost Worst Thanksgiving Ever

Yesterday morning was a rush of activity...John was working, so I was getting the kids ready to leave for Thanksgiving dinner, making our salad, cutting up our giant slab of finally cooled fudge, packing diapers, sippy cups, and coats for the soon to be below freezing temperatures. We needed to leave by 11, and it was tight. To top it off, the kids were fighting like a pack of wild cats and I was dreading even spending the next hour and a half trapped in a car with them. Finally, right at 11, I was gathering everything for the kids to haul out to the car, and I couldn't find my car keys. Not an altogether unheard of occurance around here, I dispatched the kids to look in all the usual places...under piles on the kitchen counter, in the couch cushions, etc. After several minutes, I was feeling desperate. I called John at work, something I try to avoid because he's always busy. Sure enough, he was in the process of transferring a patient to the ICU when I called, but he did come to the phone long enough to tell me that he had accidently taken *my* keys to work, which meant now we had to find *his* keys. After several minutes looking in *his* usual places (the pockets of previously worn pants and jackets, various drawers he likes to stash things in), he called back to say that he actually had BOTH SETS OF KEYS. Starting to cry at this point, I hung up the phone quickly, not really angry at him (much), because I knew he felt really lousy and because I'm air-headed enough to have done similar things in the past, but just so disappointed to find our day unexpectedly shot to hell. I told the kids, and we sat down on the couch and cried (Well, Maria and I cried. Jack was off playing with his trains and unaware of the whole drama, and Kain asked if this meant he could get back on the computer.) I sat there and tried to gather myself together, realizing that I could still pull off a decent day for the kids at least if I could get over my own disappointment. I was racking my brain for possibilities....Walmart was surely open, I could go over there and see what I could find to put together some kind of Thanksgiving-ish dinner...maybe Blockbuster was open and we could rent some movies...or I could buy a couple of new board games...and then the phone rang again. It was John, and he said that actually there was a spare key in the back of this one drawer (one of his places to stash things). Sure enough, there it was, the original dealer tagged key. And just like that, the day was turned around. We finished loading the car, the kids now happy and getting along, perhaps realizing now that getting to go to this dinner was a gift. And, on our way out the door, we offered our day for those that were alone for Thanksgiving.