Why Key Chains are a Terrible Souvenir

June 13, 2014

I love getting gifts from other people’s travels. I really do. The trouble is that, more often than not, these gifts are key chains. I don’t know how many keys the average person has, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that unless you are a janitor for a giant building, you probably don’t regularly use more than 7 keys. And chances are you don’t really use more than 3 key chains for these different sets of keys.

I personally have just 2 key chains. One set features keys to my front door and room, and the other is a single key that unlocks a Honda. Now if you ask me how many key chains I have, well…  I haven’t quite got around to counting them. And no, this does not include the Ibiza key chain from my former boss that now proudly holds my mother’s car keys or my ‘graduation gift’ from my undergrad university that my father managed to lose along with his house keys.

I’d like to state that I have never ever actually bought a key chain for myself. Yet, I currently have enough to supply my unborn grandkids for the rest of their lives. That is, unless the future holds some new technology that replaces keys. In that case, I will ask to be buried in a casket constructed of my excess key chains so they serve some purpose.

So how do I acquire these key chains? Sometimes I get a free giveaway, but most of the time they are gifts from friends who travelled somewhere exotic. I might wish they liked me enough to pay for my trip to accompany them, but nonetheless I am actually quite appreciative of them thinking of me on their travels. That being said, as much as I adore my key chain of a stick figure with a Brazil jersey and a football, I am not about to break my nails to remove my keys from my London double-decker bus key chain.

I can picture certain friends reading this, glancing at their key chains from the Philippines or Thailand, and rolling their eyes. I would like to apologise for presenting you with a key chain but do allow me to explain. Fridge magnets are a lot harder to find, I never have space in my suitcase for figurines, and let’s be honest, we all know you are never going to wear that tacky t-shirt that says ‘My friend went to Algeria and all I got was this lousy shirt’.

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