In Africa, it was pretty much the same. Sometimes I'd have one of those old round keys, but usually not.
In the States I had a dorm room key that I just kept in my pocket. In grad school, that turned into keys for the office, car, and apartment, on a ring in my pocket.
That's not the best way to carry a key ring, and I found myself sewing up holes in the pocket. My usual warning was feeling something falling down inside my pants--usually dimes. Sometimes (confession here) if I was in a hurry, I just used a stapler to fix the pocket. Yeah--don't do that. It works for a week or two, and then the holes get bigger.
At work I needed building, office, library, lab room keys, as well as 2 locks for home, and car keys. And a few additionals--bike lock, etc. I got a belt clip and hung keys off that.
More responsibilities, more keys. Not so many as the janitor or our chief engineer/building manager, but heavy enough.
Then I learned that hanging that much weight on a car's ignition switch could, and in my case did, loosen something in the lock mechanism that would keep it from turning. Car keys went on a carabiner that hung from the main key ring.
When I started traveling overseas for work, I divided the keys into personal and work rings, and hung one from the other, taking off car and work rings when I traveled.
Yes, it was messy, but my fingers learned where to go. And I generally left the work key ring in the drawer at work.
Retirement removed the work keys.
Dropping to one car removed one key from the carabiner, though I still carried a lockout key for some of the son's and daughter's cars.
And now the carabiner and car keys go on the dresser top. The belt clip's ring feels a bit naked without the extra dangly part. But the chemo and associated meds leave me too drowsy to safely drive.
I can probably safely remove another 3 keys from the remaining ring too.
There's a history in the keys in the dish too, if I could remember which was which anymore.
3 comments:
I'm sorry you're having to go through this, james, but this was elegantly written. It could easily be a poem.
I currently have four: one for the truck, one for the motorcycle, one for various locks around the house, one to the safe. All of them have house keys on them, because my wife obsessively locks everything all the time. "All doors are always locked."
When my father died, I took his keys, his phone, and his password book so that I could finish his business for him. I still have the phone; the rest of it fell away as the business was resolved.
Thank you.
It's a good thing God remembers things, because even the souvenirs of our past fade or lose their meaning.
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