When my daughter, Clementine, got her first car last year, we had a few spare keys made. Well, actually, we had more than a few made. Sure, the lady at the key-making kiosk looked at us a little funny when we asked to have nine spares made, but we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. After all, this way we would never have to worry about making another spare key again. This way we could rest assured that there would always be at least one spare key available when we needed one. Because who could possibly manage to lose nine spare keys, right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can see where this is going.
That’s right: last month marked the losing of the very last spare key. I think, if this trend keeps up, there might very well come a day when picking up a lost key off of the ground means that you have a one in fifteen chance of owning the key to Clementine’s car. Or, since she swears that every single one of the keys are still in our house—it’s here somewhere, I just had it!—it means that the next time you read about a house being struck by lightning you will probably be reading about mine, since the sheer amount of metal that must be tucked into every nook and cranny of my (not that big) house should be enough to tempt even the most mild mannered of thunderstorms.
At this point the question really becomes not whether or not Clementine is actually learning anything from losing all of these keys, (because how could she not be?) but rather what, exactly, is it that she is learning? Because it’s certainly not “always put your keys in the same place.” Unless she has learned that, and the “same place” she has chosen has been “somewhere in the ether.”
We do have a mysterious hole in our floor that is big enough to accommodate pencils, AA batteries, and green beans, (as my son, Clyde discovered not long after his second birthday). As far as I know, however, this hole doesn’t lead to the ether, but rather to a crawl space under our house. And since this crawl space also contains—according to my husband—the mummified remains of no less than three “cat-like creatures,” it shall henceforth also be known as the final resting place of all those missing pens and AA batteries, at least until such time as the zombie apocalypse makes such things worth more than avoiding a case of the raging heebie-jeebies.
Having said all of that, however, I do not think this hole is big enough for a Toyota key. And if it is, well, then, as far as I’m concerned that’s yet another thing to look forward to during the zombie apocalypse. Speaking of zombie apocalypses (surely the word for multiple apocalypses should be apocali?), I wonder if that will be what finally forces the losing gene out of humans: after all, natural selection would not seem to favor the zombie hunter who is continually misplacing their gun. Although you’d also think it wouldn’t favor the person who continually misplaces the key to the means of their escape, either. But then again, natural selection can be sneaky.
Come to think of it, maybe this isn’t really about Clementine, and what she’s learning, at all. After all, I’m the one who keeps making spare keys. Maybe I’m the one who’s actually being trained. And maybe natural selection isn’t really interested in breeding the losing gene out of children, but rather breeding the finding gene into mothers.
Now there’s a depressing thought for you. I think I’d rather just think about the zombie apocalypse. I wonder how much mummified cats will be going for by then?