At 11:00 pm last night, Paula is in a panic. She can’t find her school keys–the ones she was just told that she would have to pay $500 to replace (since it would mean changing all the keys and locks in the school for security reasons. “The only thing I can think is that Zoë picked them up off my desk and dropped them somewhere.”

Zoë, being asleep, was not available to provide any clues. We turned the area around Paula’s desk upside-down looking for them, and then surrendered.

This morning, after Paula had departed keyless, I woke up Zoë, and asked her, “Did you take Mommy’s keys off her desk?”

She nodded sleepily.

“Where did you put them?”

“In my jewelry box,” she replied. She then got out of bed and pulled a tupperware box out from under her bed; and there, among the pony tail bands and beaded necklaces, were Paula’s keys, with a yellow spiral bracelet keyfob.

After another night of interrupted sleep, I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask why she had taken the keys. I guess she liked them as an accessory.