Keys To Success

A great concern of mine, having moved around a lot in recent months, is that of being burdened by too many possessions. One can't help but accrue material goods over time. I don't buy a lot of stuff, and yet I found I had acquired an alarming amount of it regardless. There are gifts, free items and low-cost items of all kinds which add up. It's not helped by the fact that I can't bear to throw things away for fear that they will become useful sometime later. I don't think I'm one of those hopeless hoarders who paramedics must wade through stacks of newspapers and hordes of cats to reach with live-saving medical care, but I'm at least on the very low end of that scale. This all became more apparent as a result of moving, but a particular  category of personal item multiplied in my possession directly as a result of me moving. I speak of course of house keys.

I still have keys for my parent's house back home, although I believe the lock to have been changed. I often neglected to bring them with my on visits anyway, leaving me as helpless as a common visitor unrelated by blood. I ought to get rid of them, but of course I won't. There were two of them, both for the front door. It wouldn't have occurred to me that keys would be necessary for other things around a home, even though I always saw how vulnerable the mail was. Each of the places I've lived since I left that house have provided me with a key for the mail. Some of those places I've had to give up the keys immediately. Such was the case for the hostel in Koreatown and the first apartment in North Hollywood. It was not so for the place in Highland Park, as the bank's foreclosure left a certain vacuum in hands-on management, nor was it the case for the places I have lived in the last few months of wanderings. I gave those ones up just as early as was requested, but it did take a while.

I was enjoying my little collection of keys even though I knew how useless they had become to me. Even with the keys, I would feel compelled to speak with those who still lived there before using them. Such was the case for the places where I had given the key to the manager or landloard. I always would get the idea that it would be neat to make unauthorized copies before I move out for good, although what I would do with them I can't imagine. I always picture pressing the key into wax to make a mould, then making my own keys like some old-fashioned spy. That was just fanciful thinking, of course. The actual thing I imagined was that I would take the keys to a locksmith a good distance from the place itself, where an unscrupulous employee would disregard the 'do not copy' warning. I'm ethical to a fault when it comes to keys placed in my custody. I entertain the idea of abusing that trust, and then never do. Of course I never would.

Where I am now, there are four keys. Had I a car to park in the garage, one might argue that there would be five keys to concern myself with. Even having given up my collection, I find myself drowning in a sea of them. The key is a potent symbol of security, and yet I can't claim I feel any safer. Most of the locks they open are easily defeated by fairly simple tools, it seems to me. The front door may be tougher than the ones within where those tools are concerned, but there are so many simple and easily implemented ruses to get past it. Just about anyone will let a reasonable-looking person in when entering.  I also have found as a delivery driver that there's no difficulty at all in penetrating every layer of security if you are carrying a bag of hot food. Those keys provide me with the same peace of mind as anyone else even so. What can you do but deliberately embrace ignorance when knowledge is of no avail?