Saturday, June 16, 2007

Old Keys and Cosmic Laws

When you have been living in a house five years or longer, you have them -- a collection of old keys you can no longer identify. They hang on hooks out of sight here and there or have been put in drawers, trays, or little boxes. You didn't identify them when you put them away because you knew what they were, and now you have forgotten. So periodically you try to satisfy your curiosity. You try them in in all the locks you suspect, but few fit. Here a major temperamental divide arises: the bold and daring throw them away and risk needing one that is gone -- which they will once they get rid of them. The timid and cautious put them back in the fear they may need them, but they never do, thus the pile grows.

Eventually they will have to be dealt with by your children after you die, prompting exasperated comments like, "What the hell are these keys for, and why didn't they dispose of them or at least identify them."

It's a comic law. You throw them away and need them within a month, or you keep them and never need them. Don't fight it.

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