Ah, keys. I used to pride myself on the meagerness of my keychain and the thinness of my wallet. “No need for all that crap,” said I, “all I need is a house key, a work key, and a car key; my wallet need only contain my driver’s license, my ATM card, and my credit card.”
Then I changed jobs, and found that I could not get by with fewer than 3 new keys: one for each building, and one for the lock box that carries lo! the many other keys that I use at work. Then I got married, and found that I was not allowed to carry fewer than six cards bearing witness that I am fit to demand service from our bank, our health insurance, our auto insurance, our pet store, our other bank, and Costco. I also have MY health insurance, MY credit card, and MY ATM card, and God help me if I don’t carry pictures (as an atheist, I must take this last part very seriously). Oh yeah, and there’s some cash in there.
This doesn’t even begin to address the fun ‘n’ games surrounding recent trends in car keys. For some reason, all car keys now have huge plastic heads with electronic stuff in them, and always have key fobs. The key alone is too huge to fit comfortably on my key ring, so I leave it dangling from the fob, separate from my key ring, separate from the OTHER car’s key and fob, and separate from the motorcycle key that I keep in a sleeve pocket on my motorcycle jacket.
Current key ring count: 4
1: house key, mailbox key (damn thieves!), 2 work keys, key box key, other mailbox key (I chair the local section of a professional society). This is the one in my pocket; the ring is a miniature carabiner.
2: Camry key and fob. This is my car, so this one sits in my jacket pocket during car-driving weather.
3: Civic key and fob. This is my wife’s car, and I leave my set in a dish near the front door, for those occasions when I drive her car.
4: Motorcycle key and U-lock. These stay in the motorcycle, unless I’m parking away from home; then they stay in my sleeve pocket.
There are other sets of keys: the giant key ring with all my in-laws’ keys on it, for when we borrow the truck or need to enter their house in their absence; the extra car keys for mechanics; the extra house key for guests; extra copies that we don’t use; keys to locks that we don’t use right now; keys to locks that we don’t have any more; and keys that we can’t identify. But 1-4 are the one I call “MY keys,” and they don’t have any crap on 'em. Just keys.