The Key in My Drawer

I meet on Sunday nights with a lovely group of local writers, and most Sundays, we do a 15-minute, timed writing from a prompt. This week, the prompt came from The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspiration for Writing, by Monica Wood. It prompted a very personal memory I thought I’d share with you.

It was a tiny, tin key, bought for the price of three box tops from Captain Crunch cereal and $2.95 for postage and handling. But it unlocked a treasure box.

No, seriously. A treasure box. The picture on the back of the cereal showed a cartoon drawing of a pirate’s chest: wooden slats bound together with black straps of iron. A rounded top you would throw back to reveal a mounded heap of sparkling gems, strings of pearls, gold doubloons winking in the lantern light.

I dutifully ate Captain Crunch every morning for months, even though I really preferred Apple Jacks. Ate little round crunchberries until I collected the box tops. I dug pennies, nickels and dimes from my piggy bank with a butter knife. I was about to seal the handful of coins in a regular business envelope when my mother intervened.

“Here, honey. You can’t send that.” She opened the envelope and poured the grubby coins into her hand. “I’ll write you a check for it. And you’ll need a stamp too.”

We sent the box tops off, and I began the waiting. Every day, after school, I ran to the end of the dirt driveway and threw open the metal mailbox. Every day, I pulled out a stack of white envelopes, a catalogue or two, maybe a magazine. But nothing for me.

The day came, though, the day when I opened the mailbox to find a small package with my name typed on the label: Katrina Stonoff. I pulled it out with breathless anticipation.

It was a little smaller than I’d expected. I’d pictured myself on my knees, throwing back the wooden top and plunging both hands into the sparkling loot. But this box was hardly bigger than both hands, certainly nothing I’d kneel in front of.

Still, it was addressed to me. Me! I’d never gotten my own mail before. I hurried in and dropped the mail on the table. Then I ran for my room and closed the door.

I took a pair of child safety scissors from my little desk and carefully sliced open the tape. Without breathing, I pulled back the box flaps.

There it was! My very own pirate’s treasure chest! I pulled it out.

It was plastic. Thin plastic, at that, molded to look like wooden planks and iron bands. Sort of.

I opened and closed the chest several times with one hand. The hinges caught, and the lid failed to line up exactly with the base. A chunk of plastic jutted out of both the lid and top, with holes to thread a lock through, but the mold had been poured carelessly, and the holes were sealed with a thin film of plastic.

My daydreams of treasure, of something invaluable captured in my hand, leaked away, but I grasped at them.

OK, I didn’t have a pirate’s treasure chest, but I did have a tiny spot of privacy, a place to lock things away from my spying, tattling little sister, It was big enough — though just — for the diary I’d gotten for Christmas from my grandmother. Somewhere safe to keep my secret thoughts — surely that was a treasure too.

Digging through the crumpled paper inside the plastic chest, I found the lock, metal and glorious, and ran my fingers across the brushed brass surface. A tiny key, punched from tin, was stuck in the lock, and a matching key hung from a wire ring. I turned the key, and the lock sprang open. I closed it, felt it grip, then popped it open again.

Picking up the safety scissors, I dug at the film of plastic in the latch, pushed and prodded until I’d forced a tiny hole. Closing the lid, I carefully lined up the uneven holes and worked the metal padlock through, then pushed it, feeling the tumblers click.

I pulled the diary from its hiding place between the mattress and the wall, opened the box, and locked my thoughts inside. For several minutes, I stood, holding the chest — my privacy, infinitely valuable in a three-bedroom home with four children and three full-time, sort-of siblings my mother babysat. With the pad of my thumb, I rubbed the brushed metal, enjoying the slight rasp, the tactile reminder of an inviolable place that belonged only to me.

I must have pulled a little on the lock because it sprang open. The little key still stuck from the base, and I thought I must have turned it by accident. So I removed the keys, tucked the wire ring in my pocket, and clicked the padlock closed again.

But when I tugged experimentally, the lock sprang open again. I tried several times, sure I was doing something wrong, but no. It was a child’s plaything, no more a real padlock than the misaligned, plastic box was a real pirate’s treasure chest.

I don’t remember what happened to the box. At some point, I must have thrown it away. And yet, 40 years later, I find a little tin key still drifting in the flotsam of my desk drawer.

I smile to see it. I dreamed of a treasure chest with splintery wood and rusted iron hasps wet with condensation. I dreamed of opening it and breathing in the musty scent, sharp with creosote. I dreamed of fingering gold discs and running strands of gritty pearls through my hands. I dreamed of treasure for months as I ate the cereal.

Then I realized the dream, but I got the post-modern, American version instead: cheap, mass-produced, advertised as “free” though it wasn’t.

It didn’t matter. It was my dream, and I achieved it. So it wasn’t as great as I’d imagined. It was enough.

I tuck the key carefully into a cardboard earring box lined with cotton and put it in the dental cabinet where I keep things I cherish.