You can tell an alarming amount about a chap by the number of keys he has to his home in excess of that which is strictly required to access or leave the building.
Spoiler alert: the correct number is “one more than is currently in circulation.”
I always maintained a system of three spare keys: one with Beth, one at Dad’s place and one in the car.
That system was recently bolstered by the arrival of a fourth in a lockbox concealed within the mailbox.
This seemed entirely reasonable at the time.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The place to start is with those libertines who don’t get even one spare cut.
This subset of society relies on good vibes and faith. They are people who retain a touching degree of confidence in both the future and themselves.
They cannot imagine losing their key and even if they did, they firmly believe it will show up again right when they need it.
Both Reece and Joy are these people.
They assume civilisation will broadly continue to function without their assistance.
I admire this outlook enormously.
From a distance.
Next we encounter the somewhat reckless flower pot people, who hide their one spare inside a fake rock, or above the door frame, under the third flower pot from the right, or cunningly suspended from a piece of string attached to the letter slot.
These people are all about convenience, not security.
Presumably because their hiding places are easily discovered by anybody who has ever seen a television programme.
Thankfully, I know none of these people.
I feel a great deal more affinity with the smart lock lot.
Obviously.
Keys become NFC cards and smartphone apps.
Numerical codes and fingerprints.
Nathan is one of these people.
He has looked at traditional keys and concluded that the entire concept is outdated.
He is right.
Which is why I, too, have a smart lock.
And four spare keys.
The old system is unnecessary.
Which is exactly why it must remain available in the event the new system becomes inoperable.
You see, the trouble with redundancies is that they are never really redundant.
Dollars to donuts, the day the battery runs dry on my fancy lock is also the day Beth is out, the car is in the yard for service, and Dad has booked a pedicure.
And I’ve forgotten the lockbox combination.
Any contingency planner worth his salt will tell you that a backup stored inside an unavailable car is not, in any meaningful sense, a backup.
In fact, the usefulness of any backup depends entirely on its accessibility.
This is why the correct number of spare keys is never fixed.
It is always one more than is currently in circulation.
I suspect the real value of keys, even more than their number, is that despite enthusiastically automating half my house, I still trust a piece of shaped metal more than I trust a battery.
A key exists with one purpose and wants nothing in return.
It can be held without requiring a subscription.
A key has never required a firmware update, nor locked me out because my session has expired.
Perhaps the real reason I continue accumulating backup keys is that deep down, I like holding things and, as previously noted, pushing things.
Anyway.
#1920