You’ve done it, we’ve all done it –– reached your door at the end of a long, exhausting day, patted your coat, looked desperately around you, and realized you left your Hot Pocket in the microwave. Sometimes, your keys are also missing. In this exciting new installment, we interview actual Kenyon students who have not lost their keys, or at least had them in their possession at the time of the interview. Suspend your relief, however, as the narratives catalogued below do not all have happy endings, and some have even known heartbreak, loss, and the insides of backpacks. If there’s one thing we learned from this project and would share with you, it is this: that every keychain, no matter how extensive, has a story.
Keychain 1
Favorite item: My post office key.
If you had to compare an item on your keychain to a little-known place on campus, which place would it be and why? My post office key, to the place where Carl puts his books in the D-Phi lounge.
What type of weather do you prefer to use your keychain in? I hardly use it.
Keychain 2
Favorite item: My, um, lanyard.
If you had to compare your keys to a Kenyon identity, which would they be? The Kokes. My keys are the Kokes.
What article of clothing do you think best suits your keys? Jeans.
Keychain 3
Favorite item: My middle school science teacher’s house key.
Why do you have it? I had to house sit once, and she might ask me to do it again.
Keychain 4
Favorite item: I have TWO room keys to TWO rooms at Kenyon! Also one of these keys is fake and doesn’t go to anything.
Which dog breed would your keychain be and why? The slinky dog from Toy Story. Because look at these slinkies; there’s like four rings on it.
Anything else? Two of those small keys don’t work, in case people try to open my luggage.
Keychain 5
Favorite item: I’ll go with the post office key. It’s really representative of your narrative at Kenyon: Y’know, your room might change, your little locker at the library might change, but your post office box key always stays the same.
Which major literary movement would you compare your keychain to? Is ‘Art Deco’ a literary movement?
Do you have anything else to add? [Looking at PO Box key] It certainly IS return postage guaranteed! The number on my carrel key is not the number to my carrel.
Keychain 6
Favorite item: My gnome fab fob.
Which famous magical universe would your keychain likely get lost in? The place from Coraline. [Pointing to green man made of rope] He doesn’t have buttons for eyes but he has a Coraline vibe.
If your keychain was a superhero, which would it be? Hawkeye.
Anything else? I used to have a really cool keychain, but it broke and I weep bitterly every night for several hours because I lost it, but I didn’t lose it, it broke.
Keychain 7
Favorite item: My keys. Both of them.
Why are there only two objects on your keychain? I only have two keys.
After which famous pair would you name the keys on your keychain? F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
What Ohio city would you say your keys most belong in? Mariemont.
What did we tell you? Kenyon is a place whose complexities run far deeper than the surfaces of students’ jeans, and more often than not into the depths of those jeans’ pockets. Remember, keychains are never just keychains; they’re a representation of who we are as people, of how we choose to live our lives, and of what small objects we come to think have no other place but on a small metal ring. Join us next time for when we continue to delve into deeper into the true essence of what makes us, us.