A Man and His Keys.

So recently I was at my Aunt and Uncles for a birthday party extravaganza. Theses are always pretty typical in the sequence of events no matter where we have them. People that are involved include:

• Me.
• My mother and father
• My aunt Sue and Uncle John
• Their Kids, my cousins, Jay, Joey , and David.
• Grandpa, my moms dad

Sequence of events:

1. I arrive and the actual party begins. The good news for them is that they never need to hire entertainment provided I show up.
2. Aunt Sue will say' "Hey Kiddo." I think she always has and always will, it is part of her charm. Uncle John will say, "Hey man." again always has always will, everyone is "man" the first time he sees you, just the way it is.
3. Joey and Jay will both ask me about work. They will do it at different times though, they should really just hang out together and ask at the same time. I hate saying boring twice!
4. David will try to tell me a story and be interrupted by Joey. Joey has an attention to detail and does not like a story to deviate from how he remembered it. David will then roll his eyes and mock Joey.
5. At this point my mom should be on her second or third glass of wine, which means it is high time for me to start annoying her. Things I do to annoy her: Fill her wine glass too full, not fill it enough, hide it, argue with her on things that I either don't know about or don't care about, make sure that I point out that she can no longer win an argument by saying 'because I said so,' say things that I really don't mean, but that I know will get that look on her face that says she is annoyed.
6. Make fun of my fathers undying loyalty to the Browns. He will in turn make fun of my loyalty to the Bengals, no one wins here.
7. Mess up grandpas hair. He hates it, but secretly loves it.
8. By this time I have worn out my welcome and leave.

This is forever the sequence of events during any Kiesewetter/Herron get together, except this past Sunday. Joey broke out what I can only describe as shackles that he wears all day everyday, I think he might even sleep with them on his persons. What kills me is that this kid might weigh 150 pounds soaking wet and here he is lugging around this key/wallet/clip combination that might weigh 50 pounds itself.

I of course was fascinated by this, I could not imagine having to have all this stuff and needing to carry it around. I had him explain in detail why all the stuff and why in the arrangement that he had it in. Please see the picture above.

We will start with the blue claw looking thing, top right of the picture. First of all that thing needs to go, it is big and bulky and looks like some sort of torture device, I think we can get something a little bit more fashionable and/or discreet. Perhaps a lanyard to wear around his neck? Now, attached to the torture claw was a pen, a highlighter, and two USB thumb drives. He works on computers, so the thumb drives make sense, but anywhere you go you can find a pen to use and who really uses a highlighter and how often? So, to recap: Get rid of claw and get lanyard, lose the pen and highlighter as I have deemed them unnecessary. Also please get rid of the covers for the USB drives, again we are trying to get more stealthy, we do not want to give away your positions to charlie or geeks and nerds everywhere.

Next we move on to the clip that looks more like a metal octopus. Off the clip we have a chain to a wallet, a smaller wallet, a blue spirally thing for one set of keys, a green spirally thing for another set of keys, and some random black thing. What is amazing, as my future sister-in-law pointed out, was that there were no trinkets, or good luck charms on here, it was all sort of necessary stuff! But again, there is room for consolidation and reduction.

First of all let combine the keys, none of those keys looked even remotely similar, so there is no need to separate them. You will obviously not confuse them, and lets get rid of those spirally things too, they are gaudy and slightly unnecessary . Lets face it, the Keymaster from the Matrix has way more keys than Joey does and manages to keep them all on the same key ring.

Next we have two wallets. I sort of understand that one if strictly for his All-Card (Student ID) but I think that we can put that in the regular wallet. For four years in college I managed just fine with keeping it in one wallet. Might it be a slight bit more of a hassle though? I say no, either way you have to open a wallet and take it out to swipe it, so why not just put it in your regular wallet? So, now that we are down to one wallet is the chain necessary? personal preference I suppose, but if someone really wants to take your wallet, believe me that chain only helps. It gives them something to grab on to and yank. And if you think that belt loop won't just tear off, then think again!

So, now that we are down to one wallet and one set of keys, we can get rid of the clip. The clip was really the brain center of the keys and two wallets, but since our consolidation it is a brain with no purpose and can be lobotomized. And instead look more like this:



My theory is that Joey will read this and laugh and keep everything just the way it is, which is a good thing, Joey is his own man and marches to his own beat, it is what makes him Joey. I just noticed his crazy arrangement and had to weigh in on it.

Sure, if he did it my way he might not be dragging around a third of his body weight all day everyday, but on the flip side his lower body will be pretty strong! God speed Joseph, its your world I am just living in it.