I got keys, you got keys, all God's children got keys

They say you can judge how complicated your life is by the number of keys you pack with you on a regular basis. Right now I have eight. I have keys for each of our cars, a key to our house, a key to our apartment block, two keys for our flat, a key for our mailbox, and a key to my safety deposit box. That’s not too bad because there have been times in my life when I’ve packed more. I’ve had office keys, keys to buildings in which I’ve worked, a key for the can in the building in which I worked, and probably more. I think I’m simplifying.

But, it’s still too many keys. It is a sign that there are remaining complications in my life, but I don’t know how to get around that. Furthermore, I don’t know how I compare in key quotient with other people.

I don’t like having a lot of keys because I always end up fumbling for the right one. I have a visceral fear that I’ll end up fumbling for the right one at my front door just as a maniac is closing in on me with a machete. That’s not a comforting thought.

The other thing I don’t like about keys is not so much losing them, as acquiring them. I have a drawer that is full of keys for which I have no idea which slot somewhere they might be insertable within. If I chuck them out, will I find out that I have expedited one that I use every decade or so? I don’t know what such a particular key would be for, but it could happen.

The other keys in this drawer are motel and hotel room keys. I have a habit of not giving those back, and some of them go back years and they’re for hostelries in North America, Europe and Hawaii. I’m glad most rental accommodations have gone to key cards. They’re handy and will fit in a breast pocket, and if you forget to return it, they just change the code for the room. That’s sensible and represents a departure from the tiresome traditional key.

We paid a call on the Tower of London in late November, and I noticed in the Bloody Tower they have ancient prison guard’s keys on display. They’re huge things and I thought that if 15th century Tower guards had been in possession of hip pockets, those keys would have left quite a welt. As it is, my current keys can sometimes bruise my hip. They will also eventually poke through the pocket lining and leave a hole from which little change, like dimes, will fall through. Hey, a dime is a dime. They add up.

My point is, however, my current keys aren’t very different from those Tower of London ones. You’d think they’d have improved on the technology by now, but modern keys work in essentially the same way as the ancient ones. We don’t take our laundry and a big stone down to the river to do the wash any more, so why do we still unlock our doors using the same technology that Shakespeare did?

As it stands, I can’t really part with any of my current keys for the time being. How about you? How many keys on your ring?