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.

[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.

[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.

[uitlander]

The bunch is already too large for comfort. Fortunately the walking trousers I wear have multiple pockets, so they pop into a pcoket of their own away from the phone, wallet and change. We have entry cards for some things (mine lives in the wallet) - bike shed, some departmental doors & some college doors - but they have not yet replaced the sub masters for many things. Oh, and I forgot the separate key to the SCR loos which should be switching onto the entry card system over this vacation. I use public transport and bike more than I use the car, so removing that from the main rings frees up some space.

A number of people eye the chain up rather suspiciously. I have an idea this is signalling some sexual prefernces to which I don't personally subscribe, but I'd rather that than loose the keys again. Replacing that lot would be a monumental hassle.

[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.

[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.

[venta.livejournal.com]

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

[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]

Also: wine with a crown cap? Wow. I have never seen that. Beer with corks, yes :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

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

[uitlander]

It was some weird vintage German white which the host thought would be a special treat (he likes German whites very much indeed). He was totally stumped by the crown cap, and as a non-beer drinker does not own such a thing as a crown cap opener. He has finally stopped teasing me about its presence!

[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.)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

I did used to have a key to my Parents house on my keyring, but they recently got new doors and having a limited number of keys for the new door have not given me one.
Clearly NOT favourite child!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I would have thought so but they both seem to work ok. And now I have to investigate why...
Because the magnetic thingy is actually an i-button with a little data storage device in it which needs a stronger magnet to mess it up than the one in the compass, apparently.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Due to lack of siblings I can be certain that I am my parents' favourite child (and, of course, also their least favourite ;)

[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!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

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

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Nothing! But their scanner wasn't working so everyone was getting their bags manually searched, and it was considered to be dangerous (despite not being either sharp or large - I maybe could have gouged someone a little bit of I really put my back into it...) so they took it off me and I had to go and get it back at the end of the evening.

[lnr]

I have a key in my desk drawer at work which lets me into a walk-in cupboard at the end of the corridor. In that cupboard is a keysafe to which I know the combination, and in the keysafe is a sub master key, which I need if I want to access the computer rooms out of hours. Thankfully so far I have not actually needed to do so. I don't actually merit a sub master of my own!

[lnr]

My mum occasionally refers to me as her favourite oldest daughter :)

[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

[uitlander]

Are you sure there isn't a minotaur hiding in there as well?