Can You Hear This?

Have you ever noticed there’s sort of a karma where keys are concerned. You can lose one and never find it or find one that you didn’t realize you loss. Better still is when you discover that you have one (or several) that you don’t recognize and have no idea how they came to be in your possession. My desk drawer is often a gold-mine of keys that I don’t recognize.

My parents found a set of keys in the street the other day. My mom, who has the eyesight of a hawk, spotted them in the road as they were getting ready to leave a shopping center. So, in his usual Good Samaritan fashion, my Dad pulled over, waited for traffic to clear and retrieved them.

Interestingly enough, a few years ago, these keys would be completely unidentifiable. Now, thanks to just about every retail store having a key-ring, bar coded tag for their “special” customers, there was a possibility that the owner might be found. (Note: the definition of “special customer” are the ones that shop at a store, want the discounted/sales price, so they have to have the store’s bar-coded tag to ensure they receive it. Another story, for another day!)

It was fairly obvious when my father showed them to me that the owner would be desperate to locate them. (I know I’m usually panicked!) The car key was one of those flip-open security types that have to be made at the factory. The ring included, in addition to several retailer’s tags, what appeared to be several house type keys, perhaps an office key, and some specialty keys that could fit anything from a footlocker to a safety deposit box.

If you have ever misplaced your keys, even once (I do it on a routine basis), then you know that sudden heart-wrenching feeling when you realize you have no idea where they are or when you last had them safely in your possession. I hate that, don’t you?

I contacted one of the retailer’s whose tag was on the ring and their response was for me to mail the keys to them, a place several states north of here, and they would attempt to return them to the rightful owner. From the disinterested sound of the operator’s voice, I wasn’t left with a lot of confidence that the keys would ever find their way back to Richmond, let alone to the owner.

Deliberating further, I contacted another retailer whose tag was on the ring and explained my predicament. They were understanding and offered the name of an apartment community nearby. So I called the apartment complex offices and, yes, they knew the key’s owner. He had been into the office previously reporting the loss of his keys in case someone found them in the complex.

I was so relieved. I dropped them off at the apartment offices on my way home. The owner called to thank me but karma being what it is and my keys often being on the other end of it, I was just happy to have reconnected those keys with their owner. I have been extremely fortunate over the years to have benefited from the efforts of kind folks who’ve gone out of their way to reconnect me with something I’ve lost. I’ve lost my cell phone a couple of times, my keys on various occasions, and alas, my day-timer (back in the day before everyone had a PDA, the day-timer was my bible of information, and there was no computer backup for it! ).

So, the karma for me was simple, what goes around, comes around. I’ve been the grateful recipient more times than I can count so it’s just a matter of returning the favor………….