Do I Get to Say "Poor me" Now?

I spent the whole day working, which tired me out considerably--I'm not used to it! I don't mean, partly working and partly slacking off. I mean, I was at school by 9, took only half an hour off for lunch, and it is now 7. I have been working literally the whole day. As those of you who know me are probably aware, my averagely reliable brain is a dead loss when I am tired, especially when it comes to concrete physical details. This isn't an excuse for what follows, but just a circumstance.

Because I was in the university library, and needing to go in and out of the specialized rooms where they don't allow backpacks, I locked up my backpack in one of the little lockers, and only kept out what I needed for work: my computer, the power-cord, my library card, and my keys. I worked until my power ran out, wandered around the library looking for an outlet, plugged in for a bit, then went up to one of the reading rooms where I promptly became engrossed in a vaguely dissertation-related book. A couple hours later, around 6:30, I was starting to get hungry so I stood up and gathered my stuff. This is when it hit me that something was missing.

You know where this is going, right? Computer, check. Power-cord, check. Library card, check. Keys...?

It was easy to backtrack because I hadn't been to very many places. It was even easy for me to identify the last place I had seen them, which was most probably the place I accidentally left them, namely the chair I'm sitting in now where I had plugged my computer in. But they're certainly not there now, nor at the library's highly official looking lost and found place, nor at circulation, nor in the reading room either, where I searched and asked for good measure.

I know what you are saying: Bad planning! The problem is that usually I wear jeans, and habitually keep my keys in my pocket. I've never had a problem with that, and am also not used to keeping track of keys because they're always in my pocket. Only today I don't have any pockets. New rule for self: library is a jeans-only zone!

Meantime, here I am sitting, relying on the honesty of some human being, but that honesty hasn't kicked in after potentially as long as three hours, so I'm getting pretty worried. What I don't get is, why would you pick up someone's keys and not turn them in? I mean, they don't have any identifying markings on them as to where I live or what my bicycle looks like, or whatever. I can't see that they'd be of any use to anyone but me.

Let's take stock of what I have: a computer and a power-cord, a place to sit until 10:30 PM (namely, the library), an internet connection (hence this post). A lot of books available to me, since this is a library. I can also go in and out of the library with the library card, for example to pester the man at the lost and found desk, which is just outside the door. And I have lots of stuff I can work on, including the entire Siku quanshu database which I have just finished installing on my computer (if that name doesn't mean anything to you, think: almost every important book ever written in China up until the eighteenth century, and probably the entirety of my primary sources). Heck, it could be the best thing that ever happened to me. I could sit up all night and write my whole dissertation (that's a joke).

Let's take stock of what I don't have: apartment keys, money, phone, food, water, a place to sleep unless I locate said apartment keys, phone numbers of anyone I know (because they're all stored on my phone), or a clue what to do next. So technically, I could e-mail someone I know and hope they check it. But I am a bit short of people who I could do that to. My classmate Hammer, perhaps, who lives not very far away and owes me one, but I don't have his e-mail. Most other people I know well enough to have their e-mail live across town, and they would have to actually come get me since I don't even have bus-fare. Given my low mortification threshold, I confess I'd probably rather sleep on a park bench.

I believe my actual plan is to ask again at the lost and found, ask if there is a campus-wide lost and found, and finally ask if they might be willing to bust open the toy-size padlock (mine) on the locker where my backpack is. Then at least I'd have money and my phone, so I could get dinner, a hotel room, and/or (dread thought) call my landlord.

It is going to be an interesting test of my language and persuasion skills in any case!

To add insult to injury: in a glass display case outside the lost and found room, there is an enormous pile of keys and key-chains. Water water everywhere...

Update: so that no one gets worried, I did manage through a clever and circuitous route to get in touch with my classmate Hammer, so at least I had a roof over my head. Funny how I feel so much more comfortable imposing on a fellow countryman than I would on any of my Chinese friends, even female ones. More about my adventures soon!