Swap Meet - 08/02/2026

Here are my scores from the swap meet yesterday.  It was a good day with good finds.

But that's not what this blog post is really about.  It's about losing my car key about a couple months ago.  It was on June 7th.  

It was a regular swap meet day, except that when it came time to leave I didn't have my car key.  No matter how hard I (and Sweetie) looked, I just didn't have it.

I reported the loss to the Lost and Found people and left my phone number.  Landon came with my spare key.  

I called the Stadium during the week to see if anybody had turned it in.  No luck.  It bothered me a lot, mostly because losing the key made me feel old and incompetent. 

It woulda cost over $200 to replace it so I never did.  Instead, every time we went to the swap meet after that I would always go first to Lost and Found to see if maybe the key was somehow there and check to see if they still had the scrap of paper with my phone number on it in its place on the side of the desk.

Yesterday, for the first time I decided not to check.  A few months had already passed after all. 

Right away we ran into Len, a regular shopper who's there every Sunday (and Saturday too).  I jokingly asked him if he found my key yet.  He laughed and said no. 

We walked our regular route.  We saw the regular vendors.  

I decided to get some cucumbers from one of our fave veggie vendors.  There were just a few bags left.  As I was inspecting one of the bags, something familiar caught my eye. 

There on the counter right above the cucumbers, nestled in a plastic container lay my car key.

I was stunned.  I almost cried.  I might've created a commotion.  I'm not sure. 

The vendor said that he had found it on the ground months ago and didn't know what else to do except to put it in a container on his counter and hope that the rightful owner would someday come to claim it. 

After awhile, I grabbed a bunch of vegetables to buy and thanked him profusely.  I gave him two of my mom's crocheted kitchen towels which I happened to have. 

Maybe I'll bake him something for next time. 

I'm still stunned.