I Have The Key
AS I WAS GETTING INTO THE CAR YESTERDAY I accidently dropped my car keys. Five minutes later, as I was straightening up after that long trip to the ground and back, I took a close look at that mass of metal I called my key ring.
I must have had fifteen keys and other junk hanging there. The problem was that I couldn’t identify what half of them were for. What did they open?
For how many years had I been lugging around these chunks of metal that were absolutely useless in my life? Over coffee this morning I decided to try to make some sense of it all.
OK, let’s see…
There’s the car key – big and obvious, like a professional wrestler in a phone booth. No missing that one. The next one is the key to the Honda. Uh, Oh. That car hasn’t been in play for several years. No need carrying that around. I’ll put it into that drawer in the kitchen that has all that other miscellaneous and unidentifiable stuff in it.
There is the House Key hanging there. I’ll keep that one – unless I suddenly decide to start camping in the backyard amidst all of the lovely Day Lilies.
So there I am. I have three identifiable keys, but after that things are getting a little fuzzy.
One of those keys looks like it belongs to a Safety Deposit Box. Do we have a Safety Deposit Box? I knew we used to a long time ago, but I thought we let it go because…well, we didn’t have anything that valuable. The box may be gone, but I still have the key.
I can see two more keys that don’t even ring the faintest of bells: one large silver key and one small brass one. They are complete mysteries to me. Front door? Garage door? Office key? I have no idea. If anybody out there who is missing a key I may have found it.
There are also a bunch of those little plastic customer affinity thingys hanging there. One is for a supermarket chain that is out of business. I feel safe in cutting that one off. Another is for a gas station I haven’t been to in years. If I buy only 800 more gallons of gas there I can get a free donut.
No thanks. That one is going too.
When we bought the Toyota I had an optional gizmo installed – a Remote Starter so I could warm up the car from inside the house and so I wouldn’t have to freeze my Gluteous to the Maximus in winter. I have two plastic tags on my key ring with the instructions on how to get it to work. Two of them? One for each lobe in my brain. I suppose that one could be considered a “spare” but then I know that I’ll just lose it somewhere.
There are several other keys that I feel safe to ditch. There is the key to a gun case that I no longer have. I sold the guns in 2005 and the case disappeared when the Toyota was stolen in 2013. The Mastermind Car Thieves took the car about four miles and then left it unharmed. I guess they needed a ride. Their net haul was the locked gun case and a CD of Hawaiian music.
I’ll 86 the key.
The next time I drop my keys it will be a lighter thing for me to retrieve. It might not even be worth the effort unless I throw a five dollar bill down next to the keys – just to make the trip worthwhile.
Down the Hall on Your Left 