a matter of skill.

Keys
I have an overwhelming capacity to lose my keys. Really, I amaze myself. It's like the very second I walk into my bedroom, my keys evaporate from my hand and reappear in some other locale in the room. I never realize the evaporation has occurred until it's time for the keys to reappear, and I have to tear the room apart looking for them. And unlike evaopated milk, I can't just go get a box of evaporated keys, pour water on them, and have a fresh set.

It's not one of my favorite abilities. I can also make origami t-shirts out of dollar bills and whistle a flawless rendition of "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard". I'd much rather talk about those, but I didn't think they would make interesting stories. Plus, I don't want to rub my amazing whistling and folding abilities in your face. Well, maybe just this once.

Whistling
I learned to whistle when I was a little girl. I learned to whistle well when I was a big girl in the summer before my junior year of high school. My brother, he whistles, whistles very well indeed. It would not surprise me if he could whistle flawless renditions of not only "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard" but also Handel's "Messiah" in four-part harmony all by himself. Anyway, every time he would visit, I would want to whistle too, except I was kinda lousy. My skills were weak. I set out to change that, so on the occasions where I decided whistling was appropriate, I could do so with a nice, clear, strong sound.

That summer, I attended a camp for nerds called Summer Ventures where I learned about cellular biology, snails, and whistling. I whistled every day, all the time. You could hear me coming down the hall and recognize me before you ever saw me. This was also due to the fact that I had my keys attached to my wallet, danging out of my back pocket and wore sandals with jingling buckles. With the keys, sandals, and whistling, I was a one-woman band. I didn't even need to attach cymbals to my knees.

By the end of the summer, my whistling skills had improved ten-fold. And they only got better because now I was in the habit of whistling all the time. However, it was not until college that I realized my full whistling potential. One night, I was waiting at Jimmy's Java, and there was a musician playing. He was only a few notes into the song when I recognized it as "Me and Julio". It came to the bridge, where he played his guitar and I whistled quietly to myself. It takes some skill to whistle well quietly, to have that kind of control over your volume. After this great feat, after which I would have been given a standing ovation had anyone heard me, I decided it was probably time to retire.

Folding
I took an online course to learn about dollar bill origami. Well, I found a website with step-by-step instructions and did it a couple times so I would remember. It's a fun skill and never fails to impress small children and other easily-impressed people. It's even useful, as you can leave tips to your waitress in the form of small t-shirts and be assured that she will never ever spend it, but keep it with her always in a pocket in the little book she uses to take orders. Unless you leave it to me. I know how to do it myself, so I will happily unfold it and buy myself a t-shirt that fits a little better.

Once I was bored waiting for my check, so I made a t-shirt for my waitress. I left it on the table and went to pay the cashier. My waitress rushed up to the counter and thanked me profusely, because all the other servers had tiny t-shirts in their books but she did not. I left feeling righteous and marked "Do Random Good Deed" off my to-do list for the day.

Keys Again
Now really, I don't want to depress you because you can't whistle or fold money the way I can. So I'll talk about the keys some more to make you feel better. Unless you lose your keys, too, in which case I advise you to stop reading before you do something tragic.

Casey gets frustrated by my key-misplacement abilities. He always ends up waiting for me while I look around the room with narrowed eyes, scratching my chin. Then he begins a short but well-used lecture on the concept of having a place for everything and everything in its place, at which point I stop his lecture to begin my own about how much he loves me.

Boys do not understand. Boys can put their keys in their pockets at all times. Even if you change pants, there are limited possibilities where your keys can be. They are in the pants that jingle and feel heavy on one side. And unless for some reason you buy pants that do that anyway, that's all there is to it.

Girls cannot always do this. Girls have pants that run a little snugger, and I don't care to look like I have cockleburrs or a model of the Sydney opera house in my pants. So I put them down somewhere. Casey tells me to put them in the same place every time. I try to. Rather, I have a series of places I put them down in, and they could be at any one of those locales at any time. They could switch from place to place, and I would never know the difference.

The places, they are sensible places, at least I think so. My nightstand, my desk, my bed, my headboard shelf, my bookshelf, my underwear drawer, my left shoe, my bookbag pocket, my purse, my floor. All excellent places for a set of keys to temporarily live. It is not a matter of my keys not having a specified place, but more that they have too many specified places.

I hope you do not think less of me. You shouldn't, as I gave you two qualities and only one flaw. If I did the math correctly, I should be up one. And if there is ever a desperate situation where it's a matter of finding keys or death to a litter of beagle puppies, maybe you shouldn't call me. However, I think we both know who to call in a desperate whistling situation.

My brother.