I don't freak out when stuff goes wrong, but I become overly cautious and need to get the problem fixed immediately when it does. This week I'm not sure if my quick fix saved me or if it was just unnecessary, but either way I'm happy with the result.

It was Thursday December 7th and I was the last one left in my room, everyone else went home. I needed to begin getting ready to leave on Thursday so I wouldn't be stuck with winter break cleanup on Friday. I began laying out clothes and organizing my room to make it look neat, except it wasn't. It was a mess.

I started to feel disorganized from all the items laying across my room. Nothing was where it should be and in an attempt to get more organized, I ended up with useless piles. That was probably why I thought I lost my wallet. The RA told us that finals week was the week where things tend to get stolen, so naturally my first thought was somebody walked in while I was across the hall and took my wallet. It made sense but with my room a mess it made sense I could have lost it also.

With the help of my friend I was able to find it in an odd place underneath everything, but that would only be the beginning of my night.

The next thing I did was walk to Domino's to get dinner. I was struggling to balance my salad and drink that I bought from my school's student union so after I grabbed my pizza and went back to my dorm I struggled to get my keys out of my pocket. Luckily my friend was still in the room across from mine and helped me in.

The first thing I did when I got in was set my pizza down and find a way to wrap it and fit it in my mini-fridge. We have a fruit fly problem so it was important that I did it fast before they could get into the box. The next thing I did was take my slices and sit down at my desk to watch Netflix. But what I didn't do was take my keys from the keyhole.

They were there for the entire 30 minutes it took me to realize they were gone.

I ran to my door and they weren't there. I tore my room apart hoping they would be in there for some reason, but I knew they wouldn't be. I knew the first thing I had to do was go to my RA.

She started making calls and we checked to see if any one took them from my door and put them at the front desk. No one did, so our last option was to file a police report for stolen keys.

My friend told me it would have cost $500 for every key that needed replacing, plus the lock, and the service of getting the locks changed. I really freaked out when I heard that, but after asking my dorm president about it she told me it would have been around $110, and that was only if they decided to charge me. I felt much happier even though I would still have to pay a lot.

Meanwhile I had to protect my room. I couldn't dare go and do my laundry in the basement and risk someone going into my room while I was gone and taking my stuff. I still had a final to go to, and my keys were still missing. I was faced with a serious problem: how would I protect my stuff?

I decided to bring my laptop to my final and keep anything else expensive in my closet (I'm the only one of my roommates with a lock). And after an hour of researching, "ways to tell if someone entered your room," and failing, I decided to try a few experiments of my own.

I ended up taping a cut rubber band to my door frame and placing it on the inside so when someone walked in the rubber band would switch places and be on the outside. Before I left I just had to make sure it stayed on the inside. I felt like I had a genius moment. And just to make sure my friend across the hall would know if someone entered I placed clear packing tape between the frame and the door. That way anytime someone opened it, it would let out a loud rip (It resealed itself when the door closed). Even if someone had the key, there was no way I wouldn't know if they entered.

A man eventually came to switch out my locks later that afternoon and I got a new set of keys along with it. There was no need to worry about anyone coming in anymore, but I still didn't know who stole my keys from my door. Except, I got a hint when I got an email at 11 PM from the front office saying my keys were "found." I almost wasn't surprised, with my luck it seemed about right.

I was downstairs five minutes later and at that point every RA in the building knew who I was (I also got a feeling most of them didn't believe that they were stolen). My keys were sitting in their little key cup. The keys that mysteriously went missing from my keyhole were now in front of me. I asked them who it was that returned them but all they told me was that a girl returned them, no other description other than that, which I understood. After all, in this world we live in you never know if a guy would nuts and hunt someone down over something as mundane as getting his keys taken from him.

I would have to return it the next morning since my locks were already changed, but I couldn't help wondering if I would have ever gotten them back if I hadn't changed my lock. The girl who took it probably realized she couldn't get into my room anymore and decided to give them back. Or maybe she really thought that they were safer with her instead of my keyhole and decided to hold onto them for 30 hours.

If that was the case then that meant if I just waited I wouldn't have risked being charged and my locks changed. But no sane person would just take keys from a door and not knock or return them immediately, let alone hold on to the keys they planned to return for 30 hours. In my opinion there is no other way to look at it, they were stolen from my door so that she could go into my room later.

If I was patient, then I might not have gotten my keys back and something might have gotten stolen from my room. And because I wasn't, the most I'm facing now is a $20 charge for lock services, and that is only if they decide to charge me.

It's safe to say I learned a life lesson from this, and so should all of you: just take your keys from the door and take every precaution necessary, because you never know people's intentions or how things will play out.