The Magical Woman

Our second full day in Sicily (about 2 1/2 weeks ago) didn't quite go as planned. We went downstairs to have our coffee and breakfast as usual. After breakfast I went back up to the room ahead of Les. We had about 20 minutes before we had to leave for base. This was the first time I had unlocked our room myself, Les always carries the keys.

I had a hard time figuring out which key to use - there were several on our keyring (i.e. gate, safe, room, garage). I stuck a key in the door and gave it a firm, but not forceful turn.... but the turn that I felt wasn't the movement of the lock, it was the bending and snapping of the key.

I made my way sheepishly downstairs and told the girl at the front desk that I had broken my key in the door. Her first response was that it happens all the time and that she can just buzz me in the gate. I felt better for a split second, but then I realized that she thought I had broken the gate key in the gate, not the gate key in my room door. I took her upstairs and showed her, and in broken English she said she would call her boss.

By this time Les had arrived on the scene. He asked if I needed anything out of the room because we had to leave for base. The receptionist said it would be a little while before her boss could get there. I decided to wait and sent Les to base without me. Shortly thereafter the new shift at the front desk began and the lady who was leaving and I had to explain the silly thing I had done.

The short ending is that the owner was able to bring some tools and get me back into the room, get my purse, lock everything up and then let me borrow a car to get down to base.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to tonight - I was doing laundry. The same girl was at the front desk from the key incident. I finished my laundry and returned the key to the laundry room to her. As i finished folding my laundry I noticed that one of Les' socks was missing. I look all over the room, up and down the stairs, in the elevator, laundry room, etc., but no sock.

I returned the key to the laundry room once again and told her that the sock was missing in case someone found it. At first she thought I was saying someone took it, but I said "you know how sometime when you do laundry and a sock disappears?" she just looked at me blankly, I said "like, poof!" She started cracking up - she said I am the magical woman, not only do I make keys disappear into doors, now I can make socks vanish!