I’m in the middle of a deep dive into all of my spaces—my closet, my shop in the garage, my office drawers, and so forth—with a goal of more efficient, more pleasant living. I’m throwing a lot of things away. I’m consolidating a lot of things. I still have several weeks to go, but I’ve come some significant way. I’m far enough along to already be enjoying some of the fruits of my labor.
I’ve found all of the keys I couldn’t find, like the spare key to my safe deposit box that I’ve have to pay eight million skillion dollars to replace if/when I ever surrender the box. And there are a couple of other satisfying ones, like the key to my dad’s old Craftsman toolbox that he gave me (and that my mom gave him for Christmas one year). I Gorilla Taped that one to the inside of the lid.
But I’ve recovered a lot of keys—29, to be exact—that don’t seem to have a use in my day-to-day life.
I’m keeping them, of course. Some things are scarier to throw away than others, and keys are among the scariest.
There are four or five Steelcase keys I’ve accumulated since 1994 that I could almost certainly discard, as a) I know I have nothing locked in Steelcase right now; and b) it’d be quite impossible to reunite them with their locks. But, meh. They don’t take up much room, and they make the wad more impressive.
There are ten keys that look like they fit exterior doors:
- One is a Weiser key that may well have fit my childhood home at one time, as that’s the only place I remember having such locks.
- Probably one goes to my dad’s old office in Decatur, where I periodically worked weekday evenings on my initial job search (way back in the previous millennium). It’s been at least 15 years since he’s had that space, and most of 30 since I needed to get into it on my own.
- I lived in three different apartments in my adult life, so I might have an apartment key or two.
- Couldn’t swear I don’t have a key to Lea’s house, where we lived right after we were married.
- I don’t think I see a key to Madison Books & Computers. I remember that one having a solid round gold head, and there are no matches for it.
The rest of the keys are small. Those are the ones for which I have the most hope, because I still might find something they go to during the rest of my cleanup/organization efforts.
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