locked out

i don't remember the exact words of murphy's law which says that [i think] 'if anything will go wrong, it will.'

this morning, i woke up early because i was attending a 3-day conference [milken institute's global conference] held at the hilton in beverly hills. the event has about 2400 registered participants and more than 300 panelists. it's really huge.

so i woke up, got everything and left for beverly hills. i always bring with me my black messenger bag where i place all of my knick-knacks. i placed my house keys in this bag, for the first time. i don't know why.

upon registration at the site, i was given a bag. another messenger bag. i did not like carrying two passenger bags. it just wasn't right. i went back to my office after a couple of sessions.

in the evening, i had another event: the 39th anniversary of east west players, this time at the universal city hilton. since i was going back to the milken conference tomorrow, i thought i'd leave my black messenger bag in the office and just bring my new bag with me. i transferred all of my stuff that i deemed important. yes, everything, except my keys.

after the event, a friend of mine picked me up. one of our friends was in the mood to cook and he invited us. we obliged. after 24 [my other favorite show], we left for home. so my friend dropped me off in front of my gate and sped away.

the moment i stepped out of the car, i knew i was in trouble.

the freaking key was in my black messenger bag, sitting on my desk at the office. time check: 11:00 pm. i called my roomie...once, twice, thrice, ten times. max. he was not answering. i'm doomed. it's quite impossible that he'd be asleep around this time. i called our common friends. maybe they knew their whereabouts. i was hoping that he would be out. that's a better option than him already sleeping, with his cell on silent mode.

it turns out that our friends did not know where my roomie was. exasperated, i called one of our friends who live like 12 blocks from us if i could crash in their place. i was getting hopeless. my contacts were on the verge of popping out, i was getting really cold and irritated.

i started walking. i was on the corner of melrose and vermont when my phone rang. my roomie. it turns out he just got home from watching sin city with a friend. that solved my problem.

lesson learned: always keep a spare set of keys somewhere.