Forgotten keys and a fuzzy pink bathrobe

One afternoon last week, I was chatting with my mom in my apartment, when I remembered that I had to go down to the laundry room to switch a load over. I told mom that I would be back in just a minute, and got ready to go down.

*Side note: when going down to the laundry room, I rarely bother to make myself presentable. I usually have messy morning hair, and often wear my pajamas.

This day I was luckily wearing jeans and an old tee shirt, not pajamas. I did, however, have extremely morningish hair (and you don't know the meaning of morningish hair until you have seen my hair in the morning). My choice of footwear for the occasion were Morten's big ugly house slippers.

Perhaps because my mind was on the conversation with my mother, or perhaps because it was on my plans for the afternoon, I was feeling particularly absent minded that day. In any case, I realized just as the automatically locking apartment door clicked sickeningly behind me, that I had forgotten my keys.

I had no phone. No money except a bit of laundry money. No coat (it was a cold day and my old tee shirt was very thin). I had never spoken with any of the neighbors. I sat on the step for about 15 minutes, completely at a loss as to what to do. That was when the lady next door got home.

In perfect keeping with the danish attitude of giving people their "space," she glanced at me (sitting on the step looking forlorn with my face in my hands, and a laundry basket in front of me), and after an absent minded "Hej," started unlocking her door. I figured I couldn't get out of this scrape without asking someone for help and this was the best opportunity I would get, so in a torrent I explained my situation to her and asked to use her computer to contact Morten (he was at work). She was very nice and I got ahold of Morten, who said he could be home in about an hour to let me in. I was very anxious to leave the embarrassing situation of being in this lady's apartment dressed in such a way, so I hurriedly declined the offer of a borrowed coat, and forgot to ask if I could use her bathroom. When I got back out on the step to my laundry basket, I realized my foolishness, realized that I would need a bathroom before an hour was over, and that I couldn't just sit on the step for that time.

I didn't want to bother the lady again though, so I rummaged through the contents of the laundry basket. There was nothing resembling a jacket except for my fuzzy pink bathrobe. But...desperate times call for desperate measures. I put on the bathrobe and headed outside to the nearby shopping center to find a restroom.

Messy hair, old clothes, my husband's big slippers, and a fuzzy, bright pink bathrobe flapping in the breeze, all won me plenty of stares. Luckily I had just recently read Elder Wirthlin's talk about laughing in a situation that makes you want to cry. So I amused myself for an hour by laughing inwardly until Morten got home with the (blessed!) keys, and we both had a good laugh.