The key to feeling important.

Keys are the key to importance.

I have found that the amount of keys on my keychain is directly proportional to how important I feel. Less keys on your keychain doesn't say, "minimalist," it says "loser," and, "possibly untrustworthy." Sorry.

A field guide:

Two keys. A key chain with one or two keys is a sad and lonely sight. Two keys means you have access to your own home, and maybe a car, or a bike lock. You are not responsible enough at your place of employment to be trusted with keys.

Three keys. I think that it's essential to have at least three keys at any given time. Now you can get into your own house/apartment, drive a car or bike, and the mysterious third key could mean any number of things. It is most likely a work key, which is a start! But hey, it could be the key to someone else's apartment (wink wink), the key to a storage locker, the key to your diary, who cares! Each additional key makes you exponentially more important than the last.

Four keys. Now we're starting to feel a little important, right? When you whip your keys out of your purse or pocket in front of someone you've just met, don't think they don't do a quick count.

Five keys. You're in fairly safe standing here, but you could be much more important if you could open more locks.

Six +. Nice work, you are decently important. You can probably be trusted, or at the very least, you own lots of stuff that requires locking.

I have been known to keep keys on my keychain that no longer unlock anything. Changing the locks at work doesn't mean that I replace the old ones on my keychain. No no, I just add 'em right on there with the old ones because no one needs to know that some of the keys on my keychain don't work, this will be our little secret;)  You'd think that since I know that they're not really "keys" anymore, that this would lower my feeling of importance, but nope, it doesn't. There's something very satisfying about having so many keys on my keychain that I have difficulty putting them in my pocket. I have ten keys right now, and I feel especially important. (Three of them are mystery keys that I no longer know the use of, but one of them is a key card, which is worth at least 3 regular keys in coolness, so I'm good to go.)