This happened to my neighbour Sharon last Tuesday. Poor Sharon spent three hours turning her house upside down looking for her car keys, only to find them still hanging from the ignition where she’d left them the night before. Her husband Gary thought it was hilarious until he did the exact same thing two days later, except his keys were in the freezer next to the ice cream.
The thing about losing keys is it makes rational people do completely irrational things. You’ll check the same spot fifteen times like maybe the keys will magically appear on the sixteenth look. Gary swears he checked that freezer twice before finding his keys there, which Sharon reckons is rubbish because Gary never looks properly for anything.
Modern car keys don’t help matters. Twenty years ago you’d lose a key and get a new one cut for twenty bucks. Now you’re looking at hundreds of dollars and a trip to the dealer with seventeen forms of ID to prove you actually own the car. These electronic things are like carrying around a small computer that happens to start your engine.
Brisbane weather makes it worse. Keys left in hot cars get too hot to touch. Summer storms wash them down drains faster than you can say “there goes the grocery money.” And don’t get me started on pool parties – more keys have disappeared into chlorinated water than the council wants to admit.
The really mad part is how we all do the same thing. First panic, then the systematic search that becomes less systematic by the minute. Kitchen drawers, coat pockets, under couch cushions where you find enough coins for a coffee and that remote control that’s been missing since Easter. Before you know it you’re checking the washing machine because apparently desperation makes us question everything we know about where keys belong.
Sharon’s sister lives in Melbourne and had the same thing happen last month. To avoid any conflict of interest when discussing this, we often look at examples from outside our area. For this example, we went with a car locksmith melbourne service that shows how common this problem is everywhere – they’re kept busy all day helping people who’ve done exactly what Sharon and Gary did.
The solution is simple but nobody follows it. Spare keys, same spot every time, and knowing who to call when it all goes wrong. Because apparently we’d rather spend three hours searching than two minutes being organised.