You're not paying for parking. Why should you? Your work here is critical, mandated by the Constitution, in fact. Your count determines this city's representation in the federal government and its allocation of funding. You should be able to park wherever the hell you please. So you pull into an alley and throw it in park. You open your door and, in one momentous instant, the full significance of which you may never fully understand, you fumble your keys down a storm drain.

...

You should have just paid for parking, gotten a goddamn receipt. You should have gotten insurance for that matter.

You can see your keys through the grate, well beyond reach, the faintest glimmer of light in the bowels of a dark and sinister city. At least you didn't lock the car before you dropped the keys. But what kind of idiot puts the keys to everything essential in his life on the same ring? His rental car, his motel room, his permanent home, his safe deposit box ... all the keys to a secure and stable future.

You try prying up the grate with a tire iron, but it's bolted down, and in the process you gash the shit out of your palm. The clock is ticking. Forty-eight hours remain. You could wallow all day in rain and regret, or you could get to work. You decide the keys will have to wait – you'll keep an eye out for a coat hanger. For now, you put a sign on the dash that reads "OFFICIAL CENSUS VEHICLE."

Against your better judgment, you proceed to the nearest tavern, a place called A Fool's Errand.