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Lost your keys? Why is it that we always seem to lose our keys when we need them most? Either you’re late for work or need to get to an appointment. When you go to your purse or look on your counter where you always leave them, they’re nowhere to be found.
Looking for keys is often a scramble. Hopefully, if you’re lucky, you’ve got a spare set of keys that you can use in a pinch. That doesn’t mean, though, that you forget about the lost set.
Usually, your main set of keys has important membership cards, library cards, and other keys on them that you’re going to need at some point.
And hopefully, you don’t have people asking you about the last place you saw them. If you knew where you left them, then finding them would be easy, right!?
When you’re looking for lost keys, what you need to do is take a regimented approach to where you look. Think about where you’ve been and where they could have fallen out of a pocket.
Here’s a list of nine of the most likely places your keys will be and where you should look first.
Table of Contents
In Your Last Pair of Pants
Even with push-to-start cars and keyless entry, people are still carrying their car keys around in their pockets. Either they aren’t used to carrying a bag or there are still metal keys on a keyring that they need to open an office door or lock up something like a storage unit. Not everyone can go keyless all day.
Sometimes people change clothes after work into exercise clothes or to get comfortable and forget to take their keys out of their pockets.
Your keys may be sitting in that pair of pants draped over your bed or crumpled in a corner on the floor. That should certainly be one of the first places you look if you’re missing your keys.
Under Your Car Seat
Keys have a way of slipping out of certain pants or shorts and falling into the cracks between your seat and the door or the seat and console.
When you’re moving in and out of your car, there’s a lot of noise and movement, so it’s hard sometimes to notice when your keys or a phone falls out. Check underneath your car seat and grab a flashlight to look in the cracks to make sure that’s not where your keys are.
In the Couch
Just like with your car seat, the cushions in your couch or some comfy chair could very well be where your keys are hiding. They can fall out as you shift your weight from side to side after a long day.
Looking through the couch cushions can be annoying, but odds are you’ll find your keys along with that lost remote, your earphones that you’ve been looking for, and tons of other stuff that’s gone missing recently.
Your Partner’s Bag
Do you share a family car or share a car with a partner? If you do, then you’ve probably both got a set of keys that looks a lot alike. It’s no surprise, then, that sometimes you each grab the wrong set and take someone else’s keys.
Give your spouse, kid, or partner a text or a call and ask them if they grabbed your keys by mistake. It happens all of the time.
Retrace Your Steps
You should be able to remember, at some point, when you used your keys last. Think about when you last had to use your keys to open your front door or the last time you drove. Even cars that don’t need a key inserted into the ignition need to have the key in the general vicinity to start.
Once you pinpoint the last key use you can think of, start looking around where you went after that. We know, it’s easier said than done with people and their busy lives, but it’s one more thing to try.
The Kitchen Counters
The kitchen is often a central location in every home. It’s where schoolwork, spare change, and a million pens eventually end up. Kitchen counters tend to be the catch-all for whatever is in your pockets when you come inside.
Check your kitchen counters for your keys and make sure to look by the sink, behind small appliances on the counter, and even in places like the silverware drawer. You may have gone to grab a spoon with the keys in your hand and they slipped out when you made the switch.
Your Coat Pocket
In the winter, it’s easy to forget that you put your keys in your coat pocket. Make sure to check the coat rack or wherever else you keep your coat. Many times, you’ll find your keys nestled in a warm pocket.
Your Shoes by the Door
Sometimes keys fall out of your hands or a pocket and into your shoes as you sit down by the door to take your shoes off. People find their keys in someone’s tennis shoes all of the time, and it sort of makes sense.
Where you keep your shoes is where a lot of coming and going occurs, so there is a high chance that they fell out of your pocket or slipped out of your hands and went into one of your shoes.
The Front Door
Did you forget to take your keys out of the door lock when you went inside your house? Don’t worry, it happens all of the time. When people have groceries and other things to carry inside, it’s often difficult to get the keys back out.
You think that you’re going to turn right back around and grab them once you set everything down, but then a kid asks for something or you get a phone call. Plenty of people sleep all night with their keys stuck in their front door deadbolt lock.
If you’re searching for missing keys, open your door and see if they’re still out there.