Alun Newman: The key problem?
As per most years, my ‘real’ tree monitoring is going well. The tree seems to have stopped drinking and now is holding its breath until I get anywhere near with the hoover. When I do, it stops holding its breath and the needles drop like snowflakes from a pine-based cloud.
It doesn’t irritate me to the core as much as most years, which is a worry. Usually, I can’t contain my frustration. Am I finally growing up or running low on body-related chemical reserves? There must be something that can irritate me. Then I found it.
How is it I only have one key for the garage? I keep the garage locked to allow burglars to get a build-up of expectation. When they finally get in and find a broken bike, a broken mower and a freezer full of ‘on offer’ frozen pies, they realise it’s no Aladdin’s cave. That’ll teach’em.
I, like many people, have that odd drawer in the kitchen with stuff. Known by many as the clutter drawer, the junk drawer, the chaos drawer, the drawer of no return. I'm sure you have something similar. We have a child-made pottery dish full of keys in that drawer. No one uses these keys. There are loads of keys. Some of these keys have travelled with us for over ten years. There are small bunches. Different-shaped keys. Some keys on lanyards. Some on keyrings. And nobody knows what they’re for!
I committed far too much time to laying them out on the kitchen table. Interviewing family members for their thoughts and theories. Going backwards and forwards the same doors with different keys that look like the keys would work but don’t. Trying bike locks for bikes we no longer have. Gate locks for gates we no longer have. Trying door locks with keys that look like they should work but don’t.
This issue, though, is clear. I know that the minute I throw any key away someone will say, ‘Do we have a key for…’ It will only be needed when it has left the premises.
We had, just to be clear, three keys for the garage and nothing ‘from the key pot of dreams’ fits. We had multiple keys for the back door. They’ve all gone walkies. Only one key for the garage door, how can that be the case? However, I have hundreds of keys for mystery objects which I have no idea whether I still own the device that they fit.
Why do the keys you need now always go missing? Yet the keys you never need only go missing when you actively throw them away. It’s a mystery.
I have made the executive decision to put them all back in the chaos drawer. It seems too much to place a key in a bucket to take to the recycle centre and throw in their ‘steel’ skip. I’m going to wait for next year for these radical emotional decisions. If in doubt, put it off, that’s the key.