My Missing Key

Upon returning home from our last snowmobile trip to Gaylord, I was pretty bummed to discover I lost the key to my snowmobile. I had finished unpacking and I looked everywhere, searched the truck, all our luggage, shook out our snowmobile bibs and jacket, even looked in the sled trailer. I had it last in my coat pocket, but checked everything regardless.

I called Sheila, our host at the Lake Park Cabins in Gaylord, thinking I somehow dropped it in their parking lot after loading up the trailer. She kindly checked, but found nothing. So I figured it fell out in the truck by the passenger door and then out onto the ground as we made several stops, once with a flat tire and once to grab McDonalds. That was January 31st.

I bought my sled in October of 2020. It came with only one key. Bill, my responsible and “what if” kind of husband, immediately had a spare key made. He also went to Allied Leisure, a local snowmobile parts supplier and bought us both matching key rings with a pewter snowmobile, as his sled was also recently purchased and needed a key ring. So when the key was lost, I didn’t panic, as I had the spare. But I was pretty bummed that the key ring he bought me was gone.

He ordered me a Ski-Doo blank off of eBay and had another key made from my spare. Then, on another trip to Allied Leisure, bought me another pewter snowmobile key ring, so now I had an exact replica of the one I had lost. I still held out hope the original would turn up, so I painted the underside of my new one with red nail polish so I’d be able to tell them apart.

The Snow gods were listening.

Today Bill came home and said he had a surprise for me. “Close your eyes.”

When I opened them I could not believe what I saw in his hands. He had brought in the trash and recycling bins from the curb upon arriving home from work, and walked back out to grab his backpack he had set on the back of his truck. Something told him to go look down at the foot of the driveway. About 8 inches into the street, was my key. Rusted, with a bent ski, but intact.

Apparently, when I was unloading the truck from our last trip, it fell out onto the ground, like I assumed it did on one of our stops along I-75. Since we’ve been home, we had about a 6″ to 8″ snowfall and I remember watching the city’s plow truck go by, burying our driveways in thick, heavy snow. I’m lucky the key was buried so deep the plow didn’t push it into the next block! With our 40 degree temps that last few days, it emerged, battle scars and all.

Thank you, Snow gods!