Keys

Keys
8/13/09

While trying to unlock the front door after hours I dropped the keys between the concrete of the patio and the weather stripping. I saw them hanging by the metal bottle opener and as soon as I touched them they fell. It was a long fall, like dropping a rock down a well to see how deep it is. To my own surprise I didn't panic. I banged on the door until she answered and I told her what had happened and how I was somehow sad about it.
There was nothing on the keyring that couldn't be replaced. There were the two keys to two different offices at my new job that I could easily have replaced but most likely wouldn't have to given that I will most likely never work at those offices anyway. There were the two keys to the college radio station I'd been meaning to give back since I graduated but had put off for three months. Besides, they're closing that history laced building down and moving to the slick sleek student union in a month or two. There was the key to my car, to which I have a spare. The spare is worn down and stripped, just like my car which will probably breakdown for good. I've had it for seven years and it's been a great car. It will be sad to see it go. I hope the hardware store can make a copy of the worn key though, otherwise I'm fucked.
I never used the bottle opener (which I got as a promotional item while working at the radio station), but odds are I will need it tonight at the going away part of one of my only close friends in this town. The house key was replaced on the spot, and that was comforting. As soon as I got inside I looped the spare onto the keyring (accented with a kitschy keychain from Hawaii) and those were my new keys. New keys for new life, something about transforming into an adult where I live with someone. Where I just bought a grill to make our house a home and we cook dinner every night and even have a dog. A big, beautiful, stupid but wonderful black-haired lab-mix mutt.
I thought about retrieving the keys, but upon investigating the next morning I realized it would be next to impossible. It would take hours and hours of guess fishing with a hook and piece of string and it's really not worth the time at this point.