If someone offered to give you $1 million dollars to keep your school key card safe for a year, how many of you would laugh and say that was too easy?

Unfortunately, I would lose a million dollars.

When I was in seventh grade, as I sat in my new home room of the year, my homeroom advisor, Ms. Susan Hanberry handed me my key card.

She warned the class to keep our key cards safe, or we would be charged a $7 fee for replacing them.

I knew I would eventually lose my key card at some point over the six years I had left at Stratford, and I was never going to pay $7 for a piece of plastic. 

I have never been good at keeping track of small things. I put them somewhere for a second, then I do not remember where I put them.

I actually surprised myself by not losing the key card during both my seventh and eighth grade years. 

During this time, I occasionally misplaced it,, but it always ended up finding its way back to me.

I became arrogant that I would never lose my key card. I had no idea of what was to come.

Now I  realize the lanyards they made us keep our key cards in were actually the main cause of me never losing it.

When I entered ninth grade, my lanyard broke. I thought I would be fine without it, then I lost my card a week later.

Somehow my middle school luck remained, and my key card found its way back to me like a boomerang.

Nine times out of ten if I put an effort I can find my key card in one of my parents’ cars. 

Although I still had my key card, I developed the bad habit of leaving it at home because I knew I would lose it if I brought it to school.

Stratford’s buildings usually had someone to open the door when I knocked. I could also ring the doorbell on the front door whenever I needed to get in the building. This process may have earned me the ire of the front desk ladies, but they never made me buy a new key card.

Some people may ask why I do not buy a new key card whenever I misplace it for longer than a week. It is because I did not think the money was worth a piece of plastic, and I know I will eventually lose my key card again even if I buy a new one.

My current process of getting into the building is ringing the doorbell, leaving class at the same time as other students, and knocking on windows. 

My Journalism teacher, Mr. Ed Grisamorem, even knows to open the door whenever I knock on his library windows.