Ordinarily, my two sets of car keys (one for each car) are always in their usual place in our front hall when I’m not using them. I’m pretty good about it. But this week, my wife, Kristin, is recovering from surgery and I’m playing “single dad” for a bit. I’m definitely not on my game.

At 7:25am, after spectacular success getting everyone up, dressed, fed, and packed for school on time, I discovered that neither set of keys were in their place. A minute later, after checking all the likely places, I still didn’t know where they were. Guess what? No keys, no car; no car, no school! This was very, very bad.

It’s been more than a year since I started carrying a Tile device on each key ring. So I fired up the Tile app on my phone and hit the “Find” button on each key ring. After one minute of straining to hear the faint, tinny, electronic tune, I had the set for the “wrong” car (the one I wasn’t planning to take to school). It had been in my bed, buried under the covers. Apparently I’d slept with it all night. (Planning a midnight escape?) After the second minute, I had the “right” set, which had been sitting in the cup holder of the “wrong” car, in the garage. (The Tile “range finder” feature guided me right there.)

Without Tile, it would undoubtedly have taken me another 30 minutes at least to find my keys in such unusual locations. And by then, I would have been a trembling, hyperventilating, crazed lunatic, shouting at the kids and destroying any chance of them having a calm day at school. Tile saved me!

Of course, I don’t have a Tile on my sunglasses, even though my mom and step-dad gave me a brand new Tile for Christmas this year. (They know how much I need these things.) So I still have no idea where those are, and I squinted all the way to school and back in the bright, New Mexico sunlight. But hey, ya’ gotta have priorities.

Tile images from thetileapp.com/how-it-works.