I just realized another downside of living alone: I locked myself out of the flat.

I went out this morning for my run like any other day, but neglected to pick up the keys that were sitting next to the door. It was only as I put my headphones on and was starting my run on Strava that I realised I didn’t have them. Many phone calls and £100 later I’m back in my flat.

When I was a kid we never locked our house. I lived in rural Kansas and I didn’t own any house keys. We didn’t lock our cars either. When I learned to drive at age 14 and drove myself to school, I left my car keys in the ignition during the school day. This was standard practice. It wasn’t uncommon to come out of the school at 3:30 and find your car was gone — not because it was stolen but because a friend had borrowed it to cruise around the block. Instead of panicking we usually took a seat on the curb and waited until the classmate without a fully developed frontal lobe brought it careening around the corner.

At some point in early adulthood I realised key ownership was part of normal life, and despite holding keys now for thirty years I really don’t think I’ve ever locked myself out before. And I think the reason for this is I’m never usually alone. When you live with other people, somebody else is always at home or has their keys to hand. Very worst case scenario you can sneak in together through a window. This is not a possibility with my top floor flat.

Lesson learned. Key cutting tops my priority list for tomorrow.