I have spent an inordinate amount of my life, and specifically this week, looking for my keys.
I lose my keys so often that I regularly need to factor a few extra minutes of looking into my schedule.
I am told that I need a system, but I already have one.
The system looks like this: Often, I put my keys in my hat. But sometimes I put them in my pocket… or a different pocket… or a different pocket, in a coat or shirt I was wearing, but am not now. Sometimes I toss them on my desk. I also have a variety of places in or around my car where I leave my keys, including the passenger seat, the ignition, under the driver’s seat, in the gap between the door and the seat or even outside but near the car.
When I explain this system to people, they tell me I need a better, simpler system. The evidence indicates they might be right.
As it turns out, I am apparently not the only one who does this. The internet is full of columns advising me how to find my keys, what to do if I can’t find them and, most helpful, how to keep from losing them in the future.
There is also a wealth of products that will help me keep track of my keys, from the custodian-like cord that attaches to my belt, to a metal box that stays in my car to a little fob I can track using a cellphone. There is even an online psychic who claims they can help you remember where you left your keys.
I have always had issues.
As a child, I often lost my shoes, or at least one of them. This led to a very frustrating vacation during which I had only my “church shoes” to wear for a week at the beach.
In school, I hated any classes that did a “notebook check” because I often couldn’t find my notebook and knew that even if I could, it was not going to score well.
The older I get, the more pronounced the problem seems to get and the more things that join the frequently lost list.
I lose my wallet. The text history to my wife and son has no less than four message threads this year alone, in which I ask my family to look on the counter, television, sink or some other place for my wallet. I have a series of messages from my wife pleading with me to verify that I have my wallet before I go somewhere or do something.
I have a problem keeping track of my notes for work. On a near-weekly basis, I ask my coworkers if they have seen my notes. Often, I make wild accusations of theft against the same coworkers, even if the accusation is only in my own mind. Knowing this is an issue, I often write my story, or at the very least scribe my notes, as soon as I return from a meeting.
It is well documented the number of cell phones that have been lost. As a matter of full disclosure, I have broken just as many as I have lost. This seemingly has a simple solution — just call the phone and listen. My coworkers, however, bellyache when my phone rings so as a courtesy I turn the ringer off which offers no help.
I lose the remote so often that I shudder to even mention it. I have put Velcro on the back of both the remote and the television so I can stick them together, but that largely defeats the point of the remote.
I have never lost my glasses, and good thing too because I wouldn’t have the ability to find my glasses without them.
I suppose, I will work to find a solution, at least for the keys. Perhaps I will get one of the retractable leashes… Does anyone know where my belt is?
–Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.