The Fridge Did Not Need My Keys

It was the end of a long shift and my brain had clearly punched out about forty minutes before my body did. I was at the break room counter, coat on, bag on shoulder, ready, and I held my keys out toward the mini-fridge. Not hesitated near it. Aimed at it. With intention. Some part of me had routed the end-of-routine signal straight to the wrong destination and was very committed to the plan.

Simone was three feet away. I heard her make a sound that was not quite a word. I looked up. I looked at my keys. I looked at the mini-fridge. And then I laughed until I had to hold onto the counter, which was not the dignified exit I'd envisioned after a shift like that.

The aftermath. Still laughing. Keys safe.

The thing is, I was not even that tired. Or I thought I wasn't. But apparently there's a threshold below which the brain just starts rerouting traffic based on vibes, and somewhere in the last hour I had crossed it without noticing. Simone took the photograph before I could stop laughing long enough to protest. I'm not sure I tried very hard to protest. There's a certain relief in being caught doing something so specifically absurd, it's proof that the body is being honest even when the mind insists it's fine.

We stood in the doorway for a few minutes after, me holding up the keys like they were evidence in a case, Simone with that expression she gets when she has already filed the whole incident somewhere she can retrieve it later. The September air outside was actually cold, which I also hadn't prepared for, another thing the internal forecast had missed. Fall followed through again. I walked home with my keys in my hand, correctly, like an adult.

Evidence submitted. The defense rests.