I've got the secret

[venta]

Continuing the theme[*] of pointless curiosity about other people's lives, today I would like to know what other people have on their keyrings. Do you have a "keyring", ie some sort of novelty object attached for the aesthetic wossnames? Do you have useful things which aren't keys? If your bunch o' keys is massively bulky, how do you carry it about?

My keys live in the front, right pocket of my trousers. At least, they usually do. Today I'm wearing a pair of rather elderly green cords, and there is a large hole in the pocket so my keys are very confusingly in my laptop bag.

To remain pocketable, the bunch of keys has to be reasonably small so it contains only the bare essentials: at present, it seems I consider these to be the four keys required to get into my flat, the key to my bike D-lock, a 4GB USB memory stick and a chunky bottle opener.

Yes, four keys to get into my flat. One for the door to the main building, one for the main lock on my front door. Plus two more keys for the two separate deadlocks on my front door. The flat's previous owners liked their door locks. (They really did - in order to open the back door there is one Yale lock, one mortice lock, one security chain and two bolts.)

The memory stick is of no particular function, it's just a useful sort of thing to have around. It's phsyically tiny, and was a Christmas present from ChrisC. Attaching it to my keys means I invariably have it with me.

The bottle opener is for crown cap bottles, and advertises Cantrell's Ginger Ale. (A cursory google to see if Cantrell's still exists turns up a suggestion that my bottle-opener is in fact cast iron. Wikipedia also tells me that Dr Thomas Cantrell claimed to have invented ginger ale.) I picked up the bottle-opener when we were clearing my great-aunt's house out in Sheffield seven or eight years ago. It lives on my keys for much the same reasons as a memory stick; it's always there, and you never know when you might want one.

What've you got on yours?

[*] You are almost all wrong about mayonnaise, y'know.

Comments

[uitlander]

Mine is multiple rings chained together, which are in turn on a chain attached to my trousers. I look like a gaoler, but this stops them being lost whilst cycling (which happened a few weeks after moving here and caused much hassle). Ring #1 has my departmental keys - office, building sub-master, wicket gate 1, wicket gate 2 and out of hours lift. Ring #2 has my college & bike keys on it - College sub master & locker, plus bike D-lock key. Ring #3 has a badger brewery crown cap opener. One should never be without a bottle opener, it has even come in handy at a wine tasting when one of the wines had a crown cap much to the shock of the host.

House keys and car keys are on their own rings which travel separately.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Separate key rings terrify me :) I can see why you'd want to, though, when you have such a mass of the things for work. (I get into my office with a plastic card thingy that lives in a wallet with my railway photo pass and season ticket.)

My car keys used to live on my key ring when I had a car. These days ChrisC and I share one set of keys for one car - it's fairly common that we leave the flat, get downstairs, get out, and both stand optimistically by the car looking at each other.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

My keyring contains:

Keys to my flat
Keys to Simon's flat
A green carabiner, very worn
A boring flat white plastic keyfob with the flat number on courtesy of my landlord
A red metal screwcap pill box, used for carrying my medication for overnight stays/emergencies and confusing nightclub bouncers
A little metal rod that unscrews to reveal a miniature screwdriver for fixing glasses and other small fiddly objects.

It used to have a bottle opener in the shape of an animal on, but I never got round to putting it back on after the BBC confiscated it at an R4 recording.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What on earth were you doing with the animal that made Auntie take it away from you!?

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I used to keep a data stick on my keyring, but then I had a couple of incidents where I used the datastick at work and left it plugged in to my PC, went home... and had to come all the way back to get my keys. At the moment my keyring has my two house keys (main front door and my door) and another key which opens my cupboard under the stairs, a tag with the name and phone number of the estate agents on it, and another number which would presumably allow them to return my keys to me if they were found and handed in, and a plastic barcode tab which is a membership for the local public library. I haven't used the public library since signing up when I first moved here (so that I could use their internet while I was waiting for mine to be set up), and the estate agents have changed hands and name, so they're not particularly handy. I recently acquired a miniature screwdriver for tightening (or loosening, I suppose) the screws on glasses, which could live in my keyring, but would make holes in my pockets and the pockets of my handbag, and somewhere I have a little rubber brain keyring, which I should attach. I did have a keyring consisting of a piece of polished stone (snowflake quartz, possibly), but the screw came out of the stone. There's also the clippy end of another defunct keyring; I can't remember what was on the other end. I seem to be rather rough on keyrings.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I broke a lot of keyrings before I decided that actually, they weren't that essential. The only robust one I ever had was a freebie advertising Guinness, although it was really bulky.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

I have three sets of keys (car, werk, house/bike), because I rarely need more than two sets at any time and often only need one. And I dislike having bulky stuff in my pockets. And it is with this in mind that on my keyring(s) are the bare minimum of things that are necessary. The house keys & bike set has front, vessie, back door, shed & bike. And, I note, the old key to the bike cage at werk (discards) all hung off a tiny Sharpie that has a keyring attachment. Werk is one key and a 128Mb USB stick for the sole purpose of not losing the key in my bag. Car keys is the two keys I need to open and start the motor. No fuss, no muss.

OTOH my satchel contains a tube of suncream, modelling ballons, a leatherman, lemsip and all sorts of lens filter adapters, amongst other things.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a satchel/bag/handbag with useful stuff in it, but I actually hate carrying a bag unless I have to. I'm also quite prone to leaving bags behind; at least if I leave somewhere without my pockets I'm liable to notice.

I do have to carry a bag on the way to work (to put the laptop and my lunch in), and it does tend to silt up with miscellaneous useful things. And pieces of paper. Always with the paper.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

My keyring goes like this...
Keys:
front door
-back door
-2x bike lock
-office door
-big scary microscope room door
Not keys:
-magnetic widget to get into nice little microscope room
-compass that used to have a thermometer on too but now it's fallen off
-little wooden owl I got free with something
-black cat on a broomstick that I got in Japan and keep mostly because it adds something grippier than metal to the keyring when my hands are cold and it's raining.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Don't the magnetic widget and the compass upset each other?

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

House keys (back door and front door), key to Rose's Manchester house (which I really should take off as doesn't need to be there), my Bikram yoga swipe pass, tesco clubcard, key to desk drawers at work and a New Rock keyring!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Until recently, the key for my parents' front door also lived on my keyring, but they changed their locks and it seems I haven't attached the new key. Given that they're a good four hours away, I reckon I'm not likely to need it unexpectedly! (Doubtless I have now doomed myself to some bizarre fate whereby I end up in Darlington without warning and have to sit on the doorstep.)

[lnr]

The keys on my main keyring, which usually lives in my right coat pocket. are front door key, back door key, bike key, mum's front door keys (2) and the keyfob is one of those mini Tesco clubcard ones. I use this not so much as a clubcard but in the hope that if I lose them they'll be returned to me.

My office door key is no longer on my keyring but instead attached to my work ID card holder using an elastic hair band - so I can carry it around with me at work even when I don't have pockets, and open the door without having to remove the ID card. When not in the office it goes in my left coat pocket.

On top of the fridge by the backdoor at home live two separate keys on separate rings. One is for the shed and is one of those with a tag and just reads "shed". The other one for the back door and has a heart shaped bit of laminated pink note from my old slimming world consulant as a fob. There's a front door key on another ring on the shelf by the front door, that one has a bright yellow Cambridge Cycle City fob. Since you need a key to open either door I think it's important to keep one near the door (but out of sight) for fire safety reasons. There's a bunch of keys which work the patio doors on the shelves near the patio doors too now I think of it

Finally my bedside table drawer has another bunch which has my spare bike lock keys and assorted ones for small padlocks and spare bike locks and so on - I don't think that one has a fob at all. I should probably take mum's keys off my main keyring and keep them in here too most of the time.

As a student I used to just keep room key and wicket-gate key on a ribbon round my neck most of the time - I'd love to go back to that minimalism!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was just wondering how come I managed to have such a bulky Guinness-advertising keyring when I was a student, and I think the answer is that I had way fewer keys! Can't remember what, exactly.

I know the flat I had in my post-grad year required three separate keys to get into or (worryingly) to get out of.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Just a bottle opener. Saves that embarrassing desperation using a spare key to get a beer bottle open on a train.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Front door key, back door key, garage key, an a tiny one that I think is for a padlock we used to use for a suitcase (We tend to use the combo padlocks which the US border folks have a master key for these days though, because it's less hassle than buying new padlocks if things get opened in transit)

Front door key lives on its own ring attached to the ring that the rest are on, so I can identify it in the dark if the bulb for te proximity light in our porch blows.

Dull, but you did ask :P

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not dull, interesting to see what people do with their keys! My two "main" doorkeys (ie the non-deadlock ones) live on their own ring, so I can detach them if I'm going out with a minimal pocket solution and I know the door isn't going to be deadlocked.

I hadn't thought of putting keys on separate rings for easy ID-ing; my two main keys are feelably different shapes so easy to pick out even in the dark.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Keys (one of which has a built-in LED torch) and a USB stick.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hello! Drive-by comment on a rare trip to LJ-land! :) I have the following on my keyring:

* front door key
* back door key
* shed key
* gate key
* work i-button key
* magic contactless 'key' for another department
* bike key
* Mum & Dad's house key
* Swiss Army knife (so that's my bottle-opener, screwdrivers, scissors, knife, & tweezers)
* tiny pen
* nail clippers
* blood-donor keyring with my blood type on it (AB+, since you ask)
* Nectar Card mini-card
* Tesco Clubcard mini-card
* Library card mini-card
* One of those pound-coin-shaped things for swimming pool lockers, trolleys, etc

(I thought I had a USB drive on there, but I don't. Hmm. I probably took it off to use it & forgot to put it back on.)

The advantage of this mammoth bundle is that it's nearly impossible to lose/drop it without noticing immediately. The disadvantage is that it spoils the "line" of my trousers (like I care) & occasionally wears holes in poor-quality pockets. :-}

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hello, it is lovely to have you visiting our shores :)

I can see mammothity makes keys less losable, but doesn't it jab you in the leg every time you sit down? Even with my (relatively) bijou bundle I occasionally sit down, then leap up with a yelp having taken a particularly pointy edge to the groin...

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Eight (was nine) keys for five houses, three of which I visit/live in often enough to warrant daily carrying; the fourth is my parents' front door key and since I lost the two previous keys by putting the single key down somewhere, it makes more sense to put it on my main keyring now; the fifth is for a friend's flat since I feed her cat from time to time. That one is on a sub-ring and has a 'pound coin' locker token attached to it too. (Except not right this moment since I used it and left it in my swimming bag without reattaching it. Must do that before I give her key back!)

Then: a clubcard, two library cards (mine and smallclanger's), a Timpsons thing that was on the Templars keyring and I haven't taken it off, the key for my storage unit, and a bike lock key.

These are all joined together by a chunky main ring and a smaller WeightWatchers one (which is the easiest-to-use keyring I've ever had), and decorated with an enamelled Eeyore which I've had since I worked for OccHealth in 2000 and everyone got to choose a Disney keyring for their departmental keys. (This one, in fact. I much prefer this, but probably won't get around to replacing it.)

I am able to 'fold' them into a relatively easy shape to carry around in my jeans pocket and sit comfortably, although usually they live in a coat pocket or in my bag. I used to carry a bottle opener but my good one got nobbled at a party and never given back, and my back-up bent, and I need one rarely enough now that I haven't replaced it.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Sisters of Mercy, but I'm having trouble placing the track's actual title, so humming through lyric fragments is going to occupy the rest of my afternoon. Half kudo only I fear.

I have a housekey keyring with front, back, patio and garage keys on it. Also, a key for my mum's house, and one for my Dad's. Stuff on it is a tiny led torch (battery probably needs changing) and a barcode for the shop account at Bookers.

I have a Shop Keys keyring with the two shop front door keys, the stockroom key and the cashbox key on it. The keyring has a solid metal d20 on a chain attached to it, because.

The car key is on a fob with remote locking/unlocking capability and is not attached to anything else.

I have a bunch of keys for my grandmother's flat which live in my handbag for when we need to use her place as a base for D's hospital visits, since there is a spare parking space in the garage and a spare room in the flat. This has a basic green plastic oval fob.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The subject line was a short quote, so I can't rule out it being in a Sisters' song - but it wasn't what I was aiming for, so you'll have to fight a bit harder for your half-kudo if you want it :)

The keyring has a solid metal d20 on a chain attached to it, because.

Of course!

[grahamb.livejournal.com]

Door key for the flat (which opens front+back door), 3 keys for the front/back door at work, my old wedding ring, a keyfob to set/unset the alarm at work and a LED torch.

I used to carry no end of keys, attachments etc on my key ring but there came a point where I stripped my daily carry down to the bear minimum for reasons I can't remember.

[kauket.livejournal.com]

People accuse me of having a set of keys suitable for a jailer. Although it doesn't seem as bad as some of the commenters here:

-My house keys - 4 - including gate key, bike shed key, two door keys.
-Simon's house keys - 3 - although one of them is a mystery
-Parent's house - 1
-Work - 2 keys for one of the three offices I work for. Should probably give these back as am hardly ever there any
more.
-Bike lock key - for a bike (and lock!) that was stolen. I keep it in the hope that I might come across my bike locked with
the same lock just lying around. Even though they must had had to destroy the lock to steal the bike
-Bike lock key - for current bike lock
-Two bottle openers - one shaped like a fish that doesn't work properly, one shaped like a hippo that does. Both from
Christmas crackers
- A small silver plastic duck
- A yellow plastic duck that quacks (hilarious when in court trying to sit there quietly, accidentally knocking your bag
and causing a quack)

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Mine officially contains too many keys, for it liveth eternally in my pocket. Front door yale key, front door mortice key, garage key (lock no longer works), side door key (now defunct), bike lock key, and no less than four keys for cabinets at work. Obviously, with this many keys there is no need for any funky chunky thing to hang with them.

I did have a separate car key and wheel-lock key with funky chunky thing (a weird looking bit of wood in an unidentifable cone-esque shape), but these are now sadly obsolete and sitting pointlessly on the living room shelf.

This prompts me to think I should lock the three cabinet keys in my main cabinet at work, and ditch the obsolete keys, bringing me down to just four. Perhaps I'll then need a snazzy keyring to go with.

[venta.livejournal.com]

This prompts me to think...

See! I'm, like, practically a life-improvement course in LJ form!

:)

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

Eleven keys and an LED torch. Most of which I use regularly enough that it would be a right pain in the **** to find them if I took them off the ring and put them somewhere "safe". I only recently got round to removing the RAC member key (which used to open RAC roadside telephone boxes, about 30 years ago...) so that I can now claim to only carry keys that do work. The key fob (a spinning aeroplane thingy, given to me by Thai International many years ago) broke and fell off, and has not been replaced.

[grumblesmurf.livejournal.com]

Two sets of keys - car and other. Car keys are separate because I don't like more weight than is necessary hanging off the ignition.

The other set has six sub rings hung off a central ring. I'm sure some of those aren't necessary...

Main ring has house keys - front, back, and patio doors plus garage door. Also contains a key I don't recognise but looks like a suitcase type key.

Next ring has my parents' back door and garage keys.

Then there's Tesco and Bookers tags, followed by a small key I have no idea about.

Three interlinked sub keyrings contain the shop stockroom key, a metal d20, and a LED torch.

A key I have no clue about other than it might be for a padlock I haven't seen in ages and a slightly bent D-ring type key that I don't recall ever seeing before follow before the final sub keyring which contains a fairly flimsy bottle opener that works in a pinch, though the one on the Leatherman is usually more accessible and far more effective.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, hello! How are you feeling?

[pm215]

Plain metal ring with two keys for the house, two keys for different bike locks, a suitcase key which I put on for the last-but-one trip abroad and never got round to taking off again. I usually keep the keys in my bag because I have a strong dislike of walking around with things in my jeans pockets. (My bag also has the separate keyrings with keys for my parents' house and the Reading flat, again mostly because I don't get round to putting them somewhere else after needing them.)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I'm late to this but...

I have three keys - two of which I have no idea what they are for (but I'm reluctant to remove them) and the last is my front door.

The novelty key ring bit is Cloud Strife (of Final Fantasy VII fame) and the more useful bit is my blood donor key ring which gives my blood type as the common but useful O+.

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Very boringly, one newish front door key on a 30+-year-old 2" square black leather tag that used to have my first name on it in gold lettering. Car key fob is a Nectar triangle.The back door key is on a ring bearing a die and the bunch of shed keys has a prehistoric Watney's Red Barrel fob and both live in the utility. All this separation saves losing too many at once.

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I have:

Heavy brass marine caribiner for attaching to belt
Short length of nylon webbing from that to keyring
3 house keys (one for each door -- in theory I could get in using any one of them)
Uni office key
Car key
Bike lock key
Tiny pen-knife (1" blade; it's a Spyderco Bug)
16 GB Pen drive
Mysterious old iron bottle opener (has Sunderland engraved on one side and Villa on the other!)
Short chain with a mini sketchpad on the end, including a mini pencil

It's all starting to get a bit bulky though. I may need to pare down. Again.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

I have a series of connected lettings with keys to my current house, set for my last abode, set for each of my parents places (proved necessary lately) and, recently added, a long chain keyring tethering the lot to the real of whichever bag I`m using so I can fish the lot up easily from whatever depths they wander to. One of the keyrings had a charity locker token (substitute for a £1 which cost £1). Part of the purpose of the bulk is to make the set easy to hear and difficult to display. On the very rare occasions I do need to downsize I can peel off one set fairly easily, but having spent years chasing bits of change from sofas and floors where they`ve been strewn from pockets I`m not keen on keeping important items in something without a fastening.

[a-llusive.livejournal.com]

blasted autocorrect. Keyrings, not lettings

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I have omitted six million repetitions of "a key that unlocks my" in this post. :-)

One of those metal thingies that clips it to my beltloop.
One keyring attached to that with:
bicycle D-lock, lockable case for Airsoft guns, New Museums Site side entrance, parents' house, parents' garage, one mystery key, a second keyring with:
own front door (x2), front door at Nerdvana where I used to live and still visit periodically; and nine keys opening four doors, one shed, one sort of outdoor storage room, and one side gate belonging to three inamorata.

Conclusion: poly people have way too many keys.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I was moved to wonder whether inamorata was indeed the plural of inamorata (dictionary.com tells me it's "inamoratas", which I find strangely disappointing).

Mind you, it also defines the term as "a woman who loves or is loved", which seems a strangely multipurpose definition!

I look forward to the poly community lobbying for NFC doorlocks ;)