KEYS

One of the everyday objects that everyone will have in their possession. And certainly one of the objects that I also hold in my hands several times a day. But certainly also THE object that can irritate me like no other.

Love and hate

You should know that I really have a love/hate relationship with my keys. In general, I can honestly say that my memory works very well, but when it comes to those keys ... man man, I've forgotten where I put them all too often.

Or even worse, visiting someone, only to find out when you get home that you left your keys on the table in that house 20 miles away.

Going for a walk with the dogs, and after an hour of walking in the pouring rain via a beautiful winding route through muddy forests, discover that your jacket pocket turned out to be broken. So you have to walk the same route again to find your keys. Shining in the mud.

Another possibility that ever happened to me, slamming the door, and in the rush of four dogs wanting to be walked… leave the keys in the lock. On the way I didn't feel any keys in my jacket pocket, I walked back the same way, but still didn't find any keys. Oops, panic threatened to set in and dejected I walked home with the dogs ... to find those same shiny keys in the lock of the door. The door was locked, but what use is that if you leave the keys on the lock?

Yes, my memory works fine, but when it comes to my keys,

I can be a total dummy.

I can explain!

Fortunately, I can also explain where this absent-mindedness comes from. It's not as weird as it seems. I grew up in a small village where you could, so to speak, leave the house all day without locking the back door. No one would enter your house uninvited, and if someone had already been in your house, you still didn't have to worry that they would take something with them. People would rather leave a note on the kitchen table that they had visited you, but that you were not at home. And that would be followed by an invitation to have coffee together as soon as you got home. All you had to do was go to the person in question ... and of course that again without locking the door behind you.

As a child I was never taught to carry a key with me when I left home. The door was never locked when I came home anyway. That only changed when my 'puppy imprinting phase' was long and wide behind me.

And yes, that took some getting used to. Djeez, I can still remember when I got my first house key from my dad. That was when I went to high school. I was so proud of that key. I suddenly felt so grown up and responsible. And the key chain that came with it… it was beautiful. The key ring was possibly even more important than the key itself. That just goes to show that the world was a lot safer a few years ago. The burglaries were not yet the order of the day, and only happened sporadically. After which, of course, our entire village was deeply shocked if it ever happened. Those were really different times.

Times have changed

We were also not familiar with the term "key children". Almost none of my classmates in elementary school had two working parents. So there was no reason for any of my classmates to carry their own keys. And this shows once again that times have really changed.

Nowadays you have to have two incomes to even survive. That also means that many children will go to school with a key around their neck (figuratively speaking), because when they come home from school, father or mother is often not home from work yet. And not locking a door behind you when you leave home is simply unthinkable. Crime has grown too fast for that.

But we also have digital keys

I'm not going to think about what the cause is now. Today we are talking about keys! And those shiny things, which we recognize as keys at a glance, are no longer the only keys we use every day. We are familiar with the concept of 'encrypted websites, encrypted passwords', and of course we deal with our crypto keys on a daily basis.

Not your keys, not your crypto!

So you can say that keys occupy an increasingly important place in our lives.

Fortunately, when it comes to my crypto keys, I don't have such a problem with absent-mindedness. Now I still have to teach myself to get that under control with my tangible shiny keys.

Maybe I should start training Skipper to find my keys. I seriously think I'll get that done sooner than I teach myself to always remember my keys.

@rubencress, thanks again for the inspiration to start this challenge. If you find this inspirational, have a look at how it all started with the **not so ordinary challenge, and join in!

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