They needed some help. I’d cooked dinner, cleaned up and promised to be back to make lunch next day.
They gave me a set of keys so I could get in should they be out when I got to their house.
I put the keys carefully in my pocket and went home for the night.
Next morning I put on my jeans, felt in the pocket and my heart sank. No keys. I patted all my pockets. No keys. I put my hand in each pocket. Still no keys.
I looked on the floor, I shook out all the bed-clothes, I took everything out of my handbag and found a set of keys for another house. I looked under the bed, I took every item of clothes out of an overnight bag beside the bed and shook them, I got down on my hands and knees with a torch and scoured the floor again.
No keys.
I went out to the car, felt down the back and sides of the driver’s seat and found some small change but no keys.
I told myself a key ring with two keys can’t disappear into thin air, put my hand into my pocket again and found only a tissue.
I looked everywhere I’d already looked again and still no keys.
I gave up, gathered the makings for lunch, drove to the house of the people I was helping and let myself in with another spare key.
The home owner arrived home soon after and I confessed to losing the keys.
“I saw you put them in your pocket last night,” he said. “Are you sure they’re not in the key pocket?”
“Key pocket?” I thought, “What’s a key pocket?”
I put my hand into my pocket and as I did my thumb slid into a wee opening on the right hand side of the main one and felt something metal – the keys.
A key pocket is a good idea, but the key to its working properly is for the wearer of the jeans to know it’s there.