I found the keys! And it only took four years!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

About four years ago, we took a month long trip to the Southwest US. There was a big flurry of activity prior to leaving the house empty for that long. Almost as an afterthought, I locked the fire safe, looked around for a good place to hide the keys, put them there, and then showed my wife where they were. “No sweat,” she says, “that will be easy to remember.”

Fast forward a month, we return, unload everything, get settled back in, and about a week later I go to the safe to get something. Oh yeah, the keys. . .hmmmm. . .where did I hide those again. . .? Aha! My wife remembers everything, so I’ll just ask her. No clue.

We systematically tore the place apart, looking in places that would make sense, inside of bowls and cups, vases and boxes, then to places that made no sense, and finally giving up. I called in a locksmith who picked the lock and it’s remained that way until today. I’ve conducted other unsuccessful searches over the years, looking behind bookcases and even between books, and finally just figured it was one of those mysteries that wouldn’t be solved.

Early last week our neighbors told us they’re getting married this Sunday, so I made them a serving board and included a cheese/sausage cutter. My wife wanted to wrap it, and decided to include a fresh cut sunflower as package decoration. Then she went looking for a card among the dozen or more boxes of cards we’ve purchased over the years. She opened the box of Georgia O’Keeffe cards because one of the choices is a sunflower. And of course, there lay the keys.

Georgia O’Keeffe? Really? How on earth did I think that would be an obvious place and easily remembered? Yeah, she painted New Mexico scenes, but I only know that because I just looked her up. My wife knows art, and would have known that, but it’s still not an obvious choice.

At least now the nightmares will stop and I can end therapy. :smack:

2

I so feel your pain. A little, at least.

I hid the spare set of keys between two cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup in the pantry one summer before we left on vacation. I was SURE I would remember that. Of course I did not. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving when I was getting ready to make the green bean casserole that I pulled out a can of the soup and found them.

3

I don’t know if I can sympathize as I have no spare keys.
They stay on my mortal body at all times.
Just sayin’ :wink:
*I am glad you found them BTW *

4

You should have simply attached them to a correct horse with a battery staple.

(xkcd reference.)

(ETA: And remember where you put the horse, but those are more difficult to hide.)

5

I, too, found some missing keys today. It only took me about an hour, but I credit that to the sacrifice you made on my behalf. Thanks!

6

I can beat that. My wife did the same with her house keys and an (expensive) car key. We only found them when we moved house about 8 years later. They were in a pair of her old shoes at the back of her wardrobe.

7

I don’t know why I bother, but when I leave for a long period of time, I pull all the keys out of the cars and put them in the refrigerator.

The last time I did this, I put them in an Igloo cooler inside the fridge. Led to some head scratching after a while.

Goddamn, rural life is awesome!

8

When I was a child, I hid a dollar inside a book in our living room, which had many shelves of books. A dollar was a lot of money to me at the time. That was approximately two days work on my paper route, which netted about $7.00 every two weeks. Unfortunately, I did not pay close enough attention and could not find the dollar. Fast forward about 45 years, when my parents were moving to the old folks home. None of my siblings was interested in the many volume set of the Great Books of the Western World, so I took it. I never read more than a few paragraphs, but one day, while paging through a book, a series 1963 dollar fell out.

9

Maybe you thought of Georgia O’KEYfe would be your trigger to remember where the keys were.

10

We could start a whole thread about things we’d thought we’d lost but only found years later when we moved.

11

This reminds me of the story about the guy who lived in the same house for forty years, after which he found a new place to live. While he was cleaning out his old house he found a claim check for a pair of shoes he had dropped off to be repaired forty years earlier. He looked up the shoe repair place, and surprisingly it was still in business. He started to wonder what would happen if he tried to pick up the shoes he had left there so many years ago. He went to the business and presented the claim check. The proprietor went in the back for a few minutes. When he came back, he said, “They’ll be ready Tuesday.”

12

A few years ago my wife lost her keys by leaving them in the front door of our apartment building. She realised this a couple of hours later and remembered with certainty that she had left them in the door. But when she went to look, they were gone.

It was a really bonehead thing to do as anyone finding the keys would have an easy time getting into our apartment (only 6 in the building).

The entry of our building is on a relatively busy secondary road, with a reasonable amount of village foot traffic. We figured that someone must have seen the keys in the door and taken them. We asked the neighbors, checked the mailboxes, etc. Nothing. So that would rule out an honest person trying to return them. So that left a dishonest person. But that doesn’t seem likely either as we live in a small village and no one ever tried to break in after that.

So to this day we don’t know what happened to those keys. But it did cost us a pretty penny as we had to change our apartment door locks, as well as the lock to the building and everyone’s keys. At least my wife didn’t have her car keys on the chain. Very strange…

13

We have a sorta opposite problem - we’ve got keys and for the life of me, I can’t figure out which locks they fit. We bought this house 11 years ago from a couple who were obsessive about locking everything. (Dunno if they were always that way or if it was old-age paranoia.) There were padlocks and chains on all 3 gates to the back yard (even tho the yard was only fenced on 3 sides…), double locks on the doors into the house (augmented by interior barrel bolts), locks on the storm doors, keyed locks on all the windows (as well as bolts that screwed thru each window sash), locks on the sheds - you could look like a school janitor if you carried them all!!

I spent a chunk of time trying to mate them all, then label them, but I still had some left over. Either some had been his old work keys, or they were keys to cabinets that they took along, or keys to locks they’d replaced. Not that it matters to us - the only one who uses any keys here is our pet sitter. We come in thru the garage all the time.

Eons ago when I had my first apartment, I lost my car keys, and had to pay a locksmith to make new ones. Naturally, as soon as I shelled out a gazillion dollars for that little exercise, I found my keychain dangling from a bush outside my front door. Apparently a branch had picked my pocket when I was leaving for work one day. Stoopit shrubbery…

14

We don’t hide a thing around here but that darn black hole is deep with a lot of our stuff…the last thing that it swiped was a bottle of my prescription pills

Some times this stuff comes back in a relatively short time but not always…

15

:smack:

16

My wife lost my spare car key. A couple of years later she found it somewhere (old jacket pocket maybe?). Less than a week later, she lost it again. This time I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good.

17

I found my husband’s spare car key in the glove compartment of my car. He had been looking for that key for over a year. We have no idea why it was in my car. (And he had already gotten the very-stupidly-expensive thing replaced.)

18

What’s awesome about losing your keys? Or about living in a place where you think hiding keys is a necessary precaution?

I’m not arguing; I’m just baffled trying to figure out what you mean.

19

At least you still remember what the key is for.

At least annually, I’m finding carefully hidden unlabeled keys for something or other. Sometimes they fit obvious locks. Sometimes… :confused: