Al-lock-gory

[hrj]

Today's life-cleaning moment is brought to you by ... keys. Keys distill down the essence of the life-cleaning problem. You find a random key. You have no idea at the moment what lock it opens. But you know that somewhere in the world there is a lock that needs this key -- that's the essential nature of keys and locks. So you can't just throw away the key because you have no immediate use for it. Someday you will run across that lock (maybe) and there will be something important locked away behind it (maybe) and if you don't have the key then ... well, then you might need to use a crowbar or a hammer or a hacksaw or, well, you get the idea. I did a key organization session a couple years ago, but I didn't actually throw anything out. And since then I found a little box with another whole heap of keys, some familiar, some not. What's more, I've decided that maybe having the keys to everything in my life hanging on a row of hooks on the back of my front door isn't such a good idea -- especially after they've all been carefully labelled what they go to. So I bought a small industrial key cabinet and have re-sorted through every key in the house. Tossed out those I know I don't need (e.g., cars I no longer own), labelled the known keys, and distilled the remnants down to a single ring marked "I have no idea what they go to". This last is actually a violation of the basic principles of life-cleaning, but unlike the merely allegorical "keys", the cost of continuing to keep the ring vs. the annoyance value of discovering an unkeyed lock is negligibly small. Everything except my active ring will go in the cabinet in a non-obvious place in the house.

Why do I have so many keys? The hazards of being a landlady account for half of them. Being an emergency-spare-key repository for various friends and relatives accounts for another batch. Luggage and other cases (although TSA requirements make most of these obsolete). Various pieces of furniture with decorative locks. And the rest ... they're on that ring labelled "I have no idea".

Comments

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest problem guys have with that is finding a good name for it. maybe I'll go back to a soft briefcase....