Save the Fish, Lose Your Keys . . .

Since today is "Fun Friday" at our house, we decided to get up early and go help our awesome neighbor, Dr. Neely Law, with a project she's been working on to help preserve the aquatic life in the nearby Potomac River.

The project involved taking a section of a suburban neighborhood in Leesburg and placing plaques on all of the storm drains in that area, to warn people of the danger that illegal dumping of toxins can cause for the aquatic life in the Potomac, to which these drains flow. (See great sign above.)

I was the official gluer of the plaques (a very messy, sticky affair), while my children alternated cleaning off the concrete with a wire brush or carefully pressing the plaques into place. It seemed easy enough, and surprisingly, everyone was helping without complaint.

All was going well until we reached our fourth storm drain. (Yes disaster struck that early in the effort!) As I leaned over to put the plaque in place, I felt a small movement near my front jean pocket. Before I even realized what had happened, my car keys had slid out of my pocket and down the storm drain. Did they land on the lip right inside the drain? Not a chance! They went all the way down the drain and made that sound like you hear in the movies, falling, falling, then kerplunk!

I couldn't decided - should I cry or should I laugh? Instead of picking one of those options, I called The Hubby, who laughed for me and then told me to figure something out. After calling the Town of Leesburg to rescue my keys and being told that it would take some time, we set off again to save the fish of the Potomac.

My sad attempt at becoming an environmentalist had been thwarted by the very storm drains I was telling others not to dump stuff in. How's that for irony? Alas, all was not a loss - my kids had fun serving and have a great story to tell about their mom. Here are a few pictures of the kids and I doing a good thing for a dear friend and some fish we'll never meet.

Postnote: Keys were recovered four hours later. Thank goodness it didn't rain.