My key ring was way out of control. It got to the point where I had a tremendous fear of falling and landing on my keys.

So, I decided to minimize. I took inventory first, and after a quick first run, I realized I needed every single key on the ring.

Keys are a funny thing. There are few things a man keeps up with and carries on his person almost every day of his life. If I ever went into space, I'd have to take my wallet, keys and cell phone with me, just to keep from going crazy. In fact, I think I'd want to be buried with them.

(But, of course, if I die the way I want to, the chocolate syrup would ruin the cell phone and I'm sure the monkeys would take my keys and wallet after the canoe flipped.)

Despite my attachment to my keys, I decided to buckle down and really examine the situation and discard of the unnecessary stuff.

My first cut was the beer bottle opener that I've had since I was 16. In high school, it was really cool to have a beer-bottle opener on your key ring. A beer-bottle opener let everyone know that you either drank beer, which was cool, or at least weren't opposed to the opening of bottles. I don't think I ever actually opened a bottle with this opener, but I've carried it for well over a decade.

The next thing I had to part with was a broken key I've had with me since my junior year in college. I always kept that key because it reminded me of courage. Let me explain:

When I was in college, I lived with four to six people in a two-bedroom apartment. Instead of getting a bunch of keys made, we just never locked the door.

One day the exterminator came by and, being a responsible exterminator, he locked the door behind him when he left. I'm pretty sure he locked the door not so much to keep strangers out, but to keep the roaches and other vermin in and away from the general public. As I said, he was responsible.

I was the first to come home and discover that our door was locked. Luckily, I had the only key. Turns out the key didn't even work for our apartment. I still tried real hard, so hard, in fact, that the key broke off in the door.

It was about 7 p.m. on a Friday, and no one was around to help me, and I couldn't afford to even get a key copy made, much less a locksmith. So I climbed the fire escape in the back and went through the window.

Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but it was courageous. It was a 30-year-old building, the window was on the third story, and the fire escape consisted of a rickety ladder bolted in the side of splintered and rotting wood. No cage, no guardrail, no platform, just rungs all the way to the top. And I had to straddle between the ladder and the window, which was open of course, and basically fall into the apartment.

But that key reminds me of that place, and how horrible it was, and how much fun it was too. It's almost a metaphor for life: you know the whole locked-door-open-window thing. Man, I may have to put that broken key back on.

I did get rid of an old Hastings fob that never worked, a piece of a lanyard, and several other key rings that magically appeared on my original key ring.

There are still four keys on my ring that I have no clue what they open.

I figure it's better to tote around four extra keys and never use them than to really need one someday and not have it. Besides, I grew up in video-game generation where keys are mystical and powerful. If you find a key, you don't just throw it out; it could unlock treasure, doorways to other worlds or free a princess.

So I still have a huge key ring, so what?

* Jesse Wright's still has too many keys on his key ring. Tell him all about those random keys you have at jesse.wright@theeagle.com.

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