Adventure's closer than you think

A 10 a.m. text message came from my buddy, who said she needed to go on an adventure.

Is she taking a new job somewhere? Buying a sporty car? Taking up Scientology?

Nope; 45 minutes later she tells me she finally got her tater tots.

"Tater tots," I said, "are not an adventure."

It took until Thursday night to figure out I was wrong. An adventure doesn't have to be major to be an adventure. Sometimes it's the smallest thing you can imagine, and the adventure is how things worked against you to make this small task gargantuan.

For the last few weeks, my keys hadn't felt right. That little loop you have to pry apart to slide the key into was bent out of shape. It finally reached a boiling point Thursday, and I left the office telling myself, "You're not going to bed until this is fixed."

I left work so late the obvious locations had closed, so headed to the grocery store. I told myself, "Remember those marketing trinkets you threw away because all of the contact information changed? Those were all keychains. You threw away a treasure trove worth at least $2.14."

That thought bore down on me every time a store didn't have the keychain. It bore down after I went up and down the aisles, then aroused suspicion as the only person to leave a grocery store empty handed. Did they suspect shoplifting? My hoodie has some large pockets.

The drug store didn't have it either, but it did have 90 percent off Christmas gear and a ridiculous Diet Dr Pepper deal. So I was $4 poorer, ready for next Christmas and good on soda for a few weeks, but still nowhere near my goal.

I went to a pair of convenience stores and found they inconveniently had none. I would have even settled for those plastic keychains with not-that-witty sayings. One pair of clerks offered to leave a message with the manager, but I saw no need to bring a fourth person into this.

I finally found it at the big discount store I wanted to avoid, and bought some key toppers so I could find my office key on a dark night.

I went home, $8 less in my account but convinced I had myself an adventure.

"Yep," I told myself while cleaning my desk, "key chains are an adventure." It was at that moment I found the trinket first aid pouch ... with a keychain loop of its own.

Adventure is right in your back yard, but if you look hard enough you just might not need one.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis office of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]