Behind the Sofa?

When you lose your keys, there is always some guy – a guy who is clearly MUCH smarter than you – who will tell you where to look. The guy is never much help, but he has the smug certainty that at least HE did not lose his keys and that if ever he did he would first tell you to look behind the sofa. After the futile struggle of looking in all your pockets, in the car, and in the refrigerator behind the ajvar, you start to wonder if the Helpful Guy has not in fact taken your keys himself and hidden them.

Hmm…

Days go by and your keys are NO WHERE to be found. Eventually your cousin from, say, the Netherlands shows up at your door. Let’s call him “Carlo.” You promised to give the keys to your cousin several years ago, but you just cannot find them anywhere. Even though he has come to help you (after all, Carlo is much better at looking for lost keys than you), you cannot help but wonder what is going on.

YOU: Ah! So you have come back again to help me find the keys.

CARLO: Yeah.

YOU: So far you have come 27 times here, and we still have not found them.

CARLO: Did you look behind the sofa?

You never got along very well with Carlo. He was always making self-righteous speeches about the Proper Use of Keys, about Where to Store your Keys, and how the rest of the world KNOWS how to deal with keys. Usually, you were polite and told him that you were still looking.

In the meantime, while Carlo is at your house, you don’t have TIME to look for the lost keys. You sit with him and talk about WHAT IF you found the keys, then what?

YOU: I might have an idea where to look next week. I might even find them.

CARLO: Then you would give them to me?

YOU: I am not sure. The keys are pretty important to me now. The rest of my family thinks you should not get the keys at all.

CARLO: If you refuse to give me the keys, there will be consequences. I will tell the neighborhood that you are not cooperating with me.

That’s usually the way of things. A guy loses his keys (oops!) and suddenly the weight of the world is on his shoulders. No one CARES about all the other keys that he found and gave to Carlo. No one REMEMBERS that the Master Key was given to Carlo at the very beginning, but that Carlo did not take good enough care of it. And what about all the home improvement you made over the past years? Carlo and his friends are not impressed.

He just wants those keys.

Carlo, on the other hand, is SURE that you already found the keys a long time ago and are only pretending to have lost them. Carlo is a suspicious guy. Now he wants to know about your Strategic Action Plan for finding the keys.

YOU: My WHAT?

CARLO: Your plan. How will you find the keys?

YOU: I will look for them, I suppose. I will look at all the OTHER keys to see if there are similar ones. I will make a map of my home. I will ask people I see if they are harboring the keys. And I will let you know.

CARLO: Will you look behind the sofa?

YOU: Whatever.