Behold, my desk drawer. An ordinary desk drawer filled with pens, post-it notes, highlighters, flash drives the contents of which have been long forgotten, and keys. Lots of keys.

Behold, my key chain. An ordinary key chain containing all the keys I need. Car key, house keys, boyfriend’s house key, and the key to my mailbox.  If all the keys I need are here, and they are, then what, pray tell, are those reproducing near my paper clips?

Keys

Do they represent plants I promised to water? Plant

Mail I offered to bring in?

Mail

A dog I said I’d let out?

Dog

I doubt it. If they did, I’d have heard about it by now. Those keys have been in my desk drawer for years, from my time on the farm, to my former husband’s house, to my apartment in town, to the condo I live in today but, unlike the barrettes and hair bands in my bathroom,

Susan

I simply can’t recall where they came from.

I do, however, know what I’m going to do with them. I’m saving them, along with the clips, hair bands, and hundreds of bobby pins I discovered cowering in a Tupperware container last week when I started this “Why do I keep this stuff?” series, in a pretty box I’ve labeled Weird Writing Prompts. Clearly, that’s what they are and, as I look around this place with an eye toward more cleaning out and de-cluttering, I know two things:

  1. This series is far from over and
  2. I’m gonna need a bigger box.

#weirdwritingprompts #whydoikeepthisstuff