Keychains
At some point last weekend when my sister's family was visiting, I looked down and saw that my nephew was on the floor playing with my father's keychain, and for one brief moment I was a little kid again.
Ever since I can remember, my father has had keychain consisting of a long skinny loop of chain. The chain is long enough that he can tie it into a larkshead around his belt or his belt loop (and my dad pretty much always is wearing pants with belt loops), which lets the keys dangle into his pocket. The resulting keys jingle in a distinctive manner. I swear that I used to find him in stores just by listening for his keys jingling as he walked through the store.
My own keychain is much more modest. I've got the standard metal loop containing only three keys - my house key, my car key, and the old key to my fraternity house. I've never had a reason to carry more keys than that in my life. My dorm room and every campus job I had in college was on a keycard, as was my radio station access when I finally got around to obtaining it so I didn't need to ring the doorbell. I also had a keycard for my day job, not that I use that any more now that I'm working at home. I did have keys for all my prior apartments, but never more than one at a time, so I never went higher than three total. Heck, I didn't actually carry keys at all until I went to college. Our home in North Dakota was not usually locked during the day, so I never needed to carry a key most of the time.
The loop of my keychain is all that survives from a Rent keychain I bought one of the multitude of times that I saw the show. The link connecting the key loop to the decorative fob wore out after a bunch of years. I still have the fob somewhere. If you add it up I've probably spent more on merch seeing Rent than I did seeing any band, given that I bought:
- a long sleeved black "No Day But Today" shirt I still have
- a green Rent log shirt that wore out years ago
- a "Light My Candle" shirt I bought for my sister
- possibly another "Light My Candle" short I think I may have gotten as a gift for for Stephy who was stephywang when I saw the show with her sister Jenny.
- the aforementioned key chain
- a button
- a poster (which I got professionally framed and has hung on the wall over every place I've lived since 1998 that I stayed more than a month)
- a Rent dog tag that I wore in college for a few years
And probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, honestly.
That Rent dog tag is virtually the only jewelry I've ever worn consistently aside from my wedding rings. I'm pretty sure I wore it for the last three years of college and a few years beyond that. For some reason I seem to recall having worn a Magen David for a bit in college as well, but that seems like a fake memory to me given my general lack of religious fervor. I also own a gold ring with my initials on it that my paternal grandfather made for me. He made it when I was a little kid, and at this point it barely fits as a pinky ring. I've never really worn it. I'm not sure I own any other jewelry worth mentioning besides my fraternity badge, which is only for formal occasions, not daily use.
Ever since I can remember, my father has had keychain consisting of a long skinny loop of chain. The chain is long enough that he can tie it into a larkshead around his belt or his belt loop (and my dad pretty much always is wearing pants with belt loops), which lets the keys dangle into his pocket. The resulting keys jingle in a distinctive manner. I swear that I used to find him in stores just by listening for his keys jingling as he walked through the store.
My own keychain is much more modest. I've got the standard metal loop containing only three keys - my house key, my car key, and the old key to my fraternity house. I've never had a reason to carry more keys than that in my life. My dorm room and every campus job I had in college was on a keycard, as was my radio station access when I finally got around to obtaining it so I didn't need to ring the doorbell. I also had a keycard for my day job, not that I use that any more now that I'm working at home. I did have keys for all my prior apartments, but never more than one at a time, so I never went higher than three total. Heck, I didn't actually carry keys at all until I went to college. Our home in North Dakota was not usually locked during the day, so I never needed to carry a key most of the time.
The loop of my keychain is all that survives from a Rent keychain I bought one of the multitude of times that I saw the show. The link connecting the key loop to the decorative fob wore out after a bunch of years. I still have the fob somewhere. If you add it up I've probably spent more on merch seeing Rent than I did seeing any band, given that I bought:
- a long sleeved black "No Day But Today" shirt I still have
- a green Rent log shirt that wore out years ago
- a "Light My Candle" shirt I bought for my sister
- possibly another "Light My Candle" short I think I may have gotten as a gift for for Stephy who was stephywang when I saw the show with her sister Jenny.
- the aforementioned key chain
- a button
- a poster (which I got professionally framed and has hung on the wall over every place I've lived since 1998 that I stayed more than a month)
- a Rent dog tag that I wore in college for a few years
And probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, honestly.
That Rent dog tag is virtually the only jewelry I've ever worn consistently aside from my wedding rings. I'm pretty sure I wore it for the last three years of college and a few years beyond that. For some reason I seem to recall having worn a Magen David for a bit in college as well, but that seems like a fake memory to me given my general lack of religious fervor. I also own a gold ring with my initials on it that my paternal grandfather made for me. He made it when I was a little kid, and at this point it barely fits as a pinky ring. I've never really worn it. I'm not sure I own any other jewelry worth mentioning besides my fraternity badge, which is only for formal occasions, not daily use.