thanks to the good people at...

...the conference this evening.

I've been known to misplace things, quite often.

I arrived at the convention hotel (and casino), found a spot and dutifully removed my radio's faceplate and my registration and insurance information from the glove compartment. I locked the door and rechecked all of the locks. I walked into the hotel, figured out where I was supposed to be and then sat between the doors to the restrooms while I cut another two-and-a-half pages from my too-long paper. Friends came over. We chatted. We headed for our panel's room. Presentations were given, questions were asked and answered. We all headed out, ready to move on to our next activities.

Okay, so the others moved onto their next activities. I, however, was stuck frantically scrounging through my three different bags, hoping to catch sight of my keys. Work keys? Check. Car/home keys? Ha! I went into quiet panic mode and called poor, sickly Cardo, pleading for him to come and fetch me. Then, I told a random conference-name-tagged person my predicament and asked where the lost and found might be. She asked if I had lost just my keys or my phone also.* Just the keys. She recommended I go to the hotel lost and found. I snagged a security guard as he was about to ascend the escalator and he walked me to the security office (nice, nice man). I walked into the security office and blurted out a description of my keys. Happy day!, my keys were there. I thanked all who helped me profusely.

I called Cardo and told him to turn around and go home. I drove myself home (without getting lost), made some bean burritos and here I am.

Thank you whoever turned in my keys. You could have ignored them or taken them or whatever else, but you turned them in (as I would do in your situation also). Thank you.

* Apparently someone had found my keys and someone else's phone near each other. Now, I'll have to contact my friend and find out if she is missing her phone.