Koban Konundrum

(I'm experimenting with hand-writing the text, bear with me.  On the one hand, it meshes nicer.  On the other, it's more time-consuming and slightly less legible.  Not sure if I'll continue it, still deciding)

I lost my keys!  I had just gotten back to my apartment after going to the grocery store (luckily I didn't get any cold foods...) and noticed that my keys were not in my pocket.  So I rushed back to the grocery store and, like any American would think to do, asked if they had a lost and found at the service counter.  They didn't have them, though, and the woman suggested I check at the koban down the street.  For those who don't know, kobans are Japanese neighborhood police stations, sometimes translated as "police box" but they're a little different from the British ones

(Sorry, Doctor, this is not the police box you're looking for...)

Instead, they look a little more like this:


They're basically little tiny one or two story police stations set up throughout cities and neighborhoods, where police officers can keep community watch, respond to emergencies, give directions to lost tourists, etc.  I always see them everywhere, even use some of them as landmarks, yet for some reason, I forgot that someone would probably bring lost keys there if they found them lying around.

So I went to the koban near the grocery store, and then stood outside it for at least five minutes figuring out how to explain my problem in Japanese.  When I finally had a translation worked out on my phone, I walked in and basically got as far as "Excuse me, keys--" before the officer said "oh yes, we have them!" He was actually just putting the keys in an envelope to file them as I walked in.  Looks like I didn't need to spend all that time figuring out what to say after all!

To get the keys back, though, I had to show my residence card and fill out some forms.  And man, whoever turned the keys in was very thorough; they turned them in with the written description "one dark blue key holder that says UK on it holding five keys and one weather thermometer on it", and I had to write the same description three different times on the forms.  Word for word.  Eventually the police officer let me write "keys" as "カギ" instead of "鍵"  (^-^0

The officer at the koban was very nice and it was an easy process, but not one I would like to repeat any time soon.  I'll be keeping a close eye on my keys from now on.