The key to your car, of course, is far more than its predecessor.

Back in the day, a key was a crude mechanical device for completing a circuit, a chunk of cheap metal that slid into a slot, rotated clockwise about a quarter turn and got its wires crossed.

 That was it.    

The key now comes with a fob that’s the electronic boss, complete with its own chips and codes, even its own energy source.

Indeed, Captain Fob is the centre of an entire automotive universe, in command of something called the RF Transponder, and with that, everything from the car engine to lights and locks.

This brave new world is a radically different place from that which faced a young Kerr starting out on Life’s Voyage sometime in a previous century.

Back then, a missing car key was a minor inconvenience, a delay of perhaps minutes. We had long learned how to get a vehicle in motion entirely without a key.

It was a practical demonstration of necessity being the mother of invention.

For instance, my mother’s car was a necessity. If her key wasn’t available to me or my brother at the time of our intended journey – hard to believe, I know – we invented with wire and pliers.

The pair of us took to hotwiring cars like a politician to perks. In fact, mum’s car was needed for the borrowing so often that we installed a private, permanent hotwire – with a switch built in ! – between battery and starter motor.

The wire worked fine until one afternoon fire ignited the engine bay, and car became carbeque. True story. It was my brother’s fault.

But back to the current dilemma. I am key-less. And in this new world, Captain Fob at the helm, I am mere mug mechanic. I can gain access to the engine compartment, maybe even find the starter motor.

But can I still affix a wire to its nethers? What’s the likelihood my simple action will carbonize some sensitive (that is to say, expensive) component of that computer-controlled apparatus at the front of the vehicle?

Let’s remember how much it cost to repair my last automotive ‘repair.’

And let’s remember that a replacement key and electronic fob will be $300-plus, which was more than the entire price of my first car.  And that key came free. 

Right now, I really do need the current keys for the car. Wife’s bag? Never, ever a good idea. Could be bears, witches, giants in there.

Then there’s the No-Man’s-Land that is her side of the bed, not to mention the Don’t-Go-There recesses of the couch, among the half-finished, part-eaten and once-loved.

It’s even possible the car keys have made it to the very edge of the Kerr domestic universe, the eighth Circle of Hell that is our laundry.

What I need – what we all need – is a device, a TV-remote type gizmo that finds car keys by sending a signal to the key’s electronic bits.

There’ll be a beep, a blip, a burp… something to tells me where the keys are. Surely, such a thing could be included in the next generation of mobile phones? Find the key-finder app on the screen, press the virtual button, and presto! 

Of course, before I can find my keys, first I’ll have to find my phone.