The Crab Is Back

Yesterday, at 3 pm, we counted the sets of narcotic keys because it was change of shift. All 6 sets were accounted for. At 11 pm, the keys were counted again. This time there were only 5. The crab was missing. (Each set of keys has a sea creature attached to it.) We looked everywhere and called every nurse who had worked that day, but it was lost and not to be found anywhere.

Losing a set of narc keys is a bad thing. It costs, they tell us, $500 to change the locks. It would also be the end of the pilot program of each nurse having a set of keys. We would have to return to the old way of having one set of keys and yelling " WHO HAS THE KEEEEEYS" every time we need to give a narc. It is annoying, loud and even the patients used to complain that people have been looking for the keys for several days and haven't we found them yet?

I went home depressed. When I came to work today, the crab was back. During the 7 am key count, it was suddenly there again. I have my ideas about what happened to the crab, but I can't prove anything. I'm just glad that it's back. (The locks should be changed because the crab most likely left the floor and it's possible that a copy could have been made, but we're not telling anyone about this. It will remain our secret.)