It’s a typical weekday around 3:45 p.m. and I’ve been lying in bed for approximately an hour and 10 minutes since school got out, rotating between TikTok and Instagram while waiting for the clock to strike when it comes time for my coworker to drive me to work (I failed my permit test). 

Where do I work, you ask? Only the best boba shop in the Bay Area: Ten Ren Cupertino. 

Knowing I get to banter and beef with my unhinged coworkers for five hours at night, blasting rap music with little to no supervision gets me through every school day. I feel safest when I’m in the tiny boba shop I call my second home with no working air conditioning, multiple broken sinks and fridges that are way too heavy to open. I especially love serving drinks to wholesome Asian grandparents, despite them shaming me every now and then for not speaking Mandarin or not knowing which specific Chinese mountain our tea came from (my bad for not harvesting the tea leaves myself!). 

Making sure to grab my house key attached to my Daiso Japan cat keychain as I leave the house, I greet my coworker at my driveway. (Don’t forget this — it’s a key detail as my parents are traveling to Italy for 10 days and I’m home alone, with all my spare keys locked inside my house.)

As I’m driving — or rather, riding in my coworker’s beat-up Prius — I queue music to play on shift consisting of Bad Bunny, the Strokes, Kid Cudi and TWICE, per her request. 

After a long, tiresome shift recently, it was nearing 8 p.m. That’s when we close the store and undergo a ridiculously long process of cleaning. What is only an hour and a half of cleaning always feels like an eternity. 

“So who’s driving me home?” I asked my coworkers, both of whom respond by verbally attacking me — with love of course — telling me to pull myself together and retake my permit test. After begging my coworker to have some empathy for a poor, overworked and underpaid Chinese child, she agreed to give me a life without really having a choice.

After clocking out at 9:30, we began our journey home — or so we thought …

As we crossed the intersection of Miller and Prospect, I suddenly realized that my house key wasn’t on me — big surprise!

“Do you know what’s crazzyyy?” I hesitantly asked my coworker. After explaining my little mistake in a slew of words, she came to an abrupt stop at a light, evidently done with my B.S. We then started our drive back to Ten Ren.

We searched the entire store tile by tile, tapioca ball by ball and jug by jug. We scoured every fridge, tea canister and pearl pot to no avail. My coworker and I had important places to be: It was leg day at the gym for her and I was supposed to be deep in my duvet bundled up, not thinking about my responsibilities while watching a critically acclaimed movie. 

“Do you know what would be so funny, if my keys were at my house this entire time, like in my front yard or something,” I said, as I looked under her car seat cushion for the 100th time. 

It was nearly 11 p.m. by now, so I accepted my losses and tried to find a roof to sleep under. With no way to complete my homework, get into my house until my parents came back, brush my teeth or shower, I call my best friend senior Elsa Alexandra Blom with the last 3% on my phone.

Alas, my coworker and I arrived at my house just as my friend Elsa pulled into my driveway. 

Something shiny caught my eye from the reflection of my front porch light (yes, it’s exactly what you think it is). I spotted something small and round laying in the dark abyss of turf. While I was furiously searching for the keys that barred my entry to the house, it was lying nonchalantly on the ground. 

What has my life come to? Some sick joke? I wanted to take my Daiso cat and rip it to shreds, take my acrylic nails and stab it until all the fluff comes out, pour gasoline and set it on fire and run it over with the car and permit I still don’t not have. And I really love stuffed animals, so this is saying a lot. 

But after all this chaos, I don’t have the energy for any of that. Feeling successful from finding my house key, I find solace in the comfort of Elsa’s abode and — ignoring the fact I still have homework — I call it a day.