Open House

No way! Open your house with a Marvel-licensed key! How cool is that?!

I came across this on an emergency trip to the hardware store -- there's an excellent plumber here today fixing my kitchen sink and the faucet in the guest room. This is the kind of craftsman that's hard to find these days -- a man who takes real pride in his work, goes above and beyond the call of duty, and even thinks ahead in terms of what order to dismantle and reassemble everything so that no time is wasted. It's a pleasure to watch him work, and after he dismantled the Reverse Osmosis system for cleaning, I discovered that I only had 3 of 4 replacement filters in the house, hence the rush to the nearest hardware place.

I was actually tempted by these keys. There were a bunch of Marvel characters and some Peanuts characters, as well. I love visual shorthand and the incomprehensible-to-outsiders jargon that can result -- imagine telling a housesitter a mnemonic like: Wolverine at the front, Snoopy in the back. (My current house keys are color-coded yellow and green, for front door and back, because my house is yellow and my yard is green.)

But is choosing a key graphic like choosing a personal avatar? This isn't a "Wolverine" house, and they didn't carry an "Athena" key or even a "Red Sonja." (I'll accept "Wonder Woman" in a pinch!)

So I walked away empty-handed, wondering whether stuff like this finds a market. Because while I can understand why Len Wein would want a Wolverine key for his house -- and you do, don't you, Len? -- I'm still sorting out who the rest of the customers are.