I admit it: I’m a Key Loser.
Keys and I have never had what you’d call a stable relationship.
One minute, I’ll be using them to unlock my car or my front door.
And the next, they’re gone. GONE.
I admit it: I’m a Key Loser.
Keys and I have never had what you’d call a stable relationship. One minute, I’ll be using them to unlock my car or my front door. And the next, they’re gone. GONE.
Let me just stop here and say that I’m a fairly responsible person who usually doesn’t go around losing important things. For instance, I know where the Christmas lights are stored, where the newborn outfit is that my son wore home from the hospital in 1995, and I know exactly where the television remote is. But do I have any idea where my car keys are?
In my defense, it’s not my fault. You see, I come from a long lineage of people known as Losers Who Can’t Keep Track of Loose Objects. I routinely lose cell phones, Tupperware lids and so on.
So you’d think with my history I’d learn to keep an extra careful eye on my keys. You’d think.
But let me just say that, although I have a lot of arcane knowledge stored in my head, like the cost of lettuce in Tokyo, the inflation rate of the global economy and the formula for champagne blonde highlights, I do not know why my keys keep disappearing.
Oh, sure, I have some theories on why this is. One of which is that keys are just too small to keep track of. They’re always falling behind furniture or in sofa cushions. Another is that I’m so busy rushing around to kid activities that I forget where I left them. But I think the real reason is that keys are part of a secret conspiracy to make me look bad.
A bit paranoid? Maybe, but how else do you explain that only the important keys disappear? For instance, I can’t find the key to the front screen door, but I have the key to the Gremlin I drove in 1983.
On top of that, I have drawers full of useless keys. Mystery keys. That once, I’m sure, opened something somewhere, but no one has any idea what that might be now.
And of course I can’t get rid of them. As most experienced Key Losers know, the very nanosecond you toss any of them out, all 187 bazillion locks using those exact same keys will immediately need opening. And then you, of course, WON’T HAVE THE KEY.
One thing that’s certain, though. Once keys are gone, there’s not much you can do about it until they decide to come back. Sure, you can try “ha, ha” looking, but trust me, this approach, much like the Grapefruit Diet and home perms, never works.
And, sure, you can always try getting through your day by borrowing other family member’s keys. This may work for a while, but this kind of subterfuge is no way to live your life forever. Not only will you inconvenience people and you will owe them lots of favors, it’s only a matter of time before someone finds you out and you’ll exposed to the world not only as a Major Key Loser, but a Sneaky Major Key Loser.
Once I even tried making spare keys and hiding them around the house. But of course I’d be naïve to think that something this simple would work with keys.
The one hidden under the welcome mat turned up behind the potted fern. The one stashed behind the planter box showed up on top of the barbecue. And the one underneath the porcupine shoe cleaner disappeared completely. Coincidence? I think not.
But the really funny thing about keys is that they eventually get bored with hiding and reappear on their own. But not until everyone in the world knows you lost them. That said, has anyone seen my car keys?
