In the 1970’s, back when I was just a wee tot, I hear there was a phenomenon called “key parties” where married couples would throw their car keys into a common bowl. The wives would pick a key out of the bowl and go home with the man whose key they’d chosen. I’d seen it in “Swingtown,” a show whose campy greatness I still miss, and more recently, in a repeat viewing of “The Ice Storm.” In the movie, the whole thing looked very uncomfortable as awkwardly-dressed, unattractive 70’s husbands and wives fished out keys and tried to avoid eye contact as they took off with other people’s spouses.

I felt more or less the same awkwardness when I attended my first-ever, and most certainly last-ever, “Lock and Key” party last Friday. On a whim, I decided to join my friend Meb* and her buddies at a local nightclub where they were holding what was billed as the singles social event of the season. The premise, as you might have guessed, was that women were given small padlocks to wear around their neck on a chain, and the gentlemen were handed keys that purportedly fit those locks.

Back when I was a bartender in Moston*, oh wait I can spell that out…there’s no embarrassment there…back in Boston, when I bartended at a yuppie nightclub called the “Links Club,” we held a “Nuts and Bolts” party where men got bolts and women got, wait for it, the nuts. The hilarity that ensued from men walking around spewing such witticisms as “can I screw you?” or “let me see your nuts, girls” was unprecedented. Strangely, however, the event stayed in my mind because it ended up being kind of fun and the stockbroker guys were pretty good-looking.

In the twenty, cough-cough, some odd years since then I have often thought about throwing a “Screw Valentine’s Day” party at my house. All my friends would be directed to bring a single friend of the opposite sex (that you’re not sleeping with), and then we’d do the whole nuts and bolts thing so people could meet each other and find love. The big idea falls apart each year, though, because all of my straight single girlfriends’ single male friends are gay (otherwise they’d be sleeping with them), and the yin-yang thing goes horribly awry. I can’t figure out how to make everyone happy without setting up all kinds of different bowls of nuts and nuts, bolts and bolts, nuts and bolts, just nuts, etc.

So it was with this residual love of the concept still in my heart that I agreed to go to the “Lock and Key” event. I got there before the rest of the gang and sat in the parking lot, watching in sheer dismay as carload after carload of women arrived. An occasional man pulled up, looking timid and scared, scurrying in, usually alone. When we were all assembled, we walked in to what looked like a school dance. Women lined the walls and men stood in little, uncomfortable packs, glancing surreptitiously every time a new group of “chicks” walked in. We immediately ordered large cocktails, mine with an extra shot of vodka, to brace ourselves for what was to come.

After about half an hour, an overly enthusiastic Billy Mays-type host grabbed the mike and emphatically explained the rules for the evening. Any couple whose key and lock matched would be eligible for a plethora of fabulous prizes. And hold on to those red tickets you received when you came in, he said, there will be a raffle in a couple of hours where even bigger prizes are at stake. You don’t want to miss it. And with that, our pitchman lined all the men up on the left and all the women on the right. We stepped forward to receive our equipment.

The next hour was a sweaty mess of short, intensely shy, or overly gregarious men walking up to me with sheepish expressions. “Uh, did I try you already?” “No, you didn’t (peer at nametag), Samir, go right ahead.” Many men, after meeting with no success for long periods of time, opted to switch out their old keys for new ones. “Oh hi, (peer at name tag again) Gaylord, you already tried me! Oh it’s a new key…alright, give it a shot.” The prospect of winning fabulous cash and prizes seemed to turn the men into animals, frantically trying locks and then quickly moving along. Since there were about 20 women to each man, the odds seemed pretty good that one or two of the men would succeed.

Getting bored quickly, I put my mind to cheating. I figured out that each lock and each key had a number etched into it, showing which went with which after the festivities were complete. My lock was #9…so I went in search of my #9 key. I walked up to the nearest man. “Does that say Dan or Don,” I asked trying to decipher his bad handwriting. “Either will work,” he replied. “You’ll answer to either Dan or Don? Really?” I decided I didn’t want Dan/Don to be #9 so I moved on. I tried my shortcut on quite a few guys but quickly came to realize that most of them a) couldn’t see the little number etched on their key and b) didn’t want to zip past the oh-so-symbolic placing of the key inside the lock.

I knew my future husband was not among the key bearers (I actually knew that the second I walked in but thought I’d go along with it for a while) so I ordered another double and went to talk to one of the party’s hosts. A lovely man from Johannesburg, Eugene was charming and informative, telling me all about what it was like to grow up in a middle class black family in South Africa. We talked about his marriage, his divorce, his big move to Los Angeles and the economy. Before I knew it, it was time for prizes!

The one or two lucky couples whose lock and key matched actually won good prizes such as hotel stays and spa visits. Raffle ticket holders went on to win REALLY good prizes such as airline tickets and photo shoots. Go figure. But, the minute all the white envelopes had been handed out, my crew ran for the door, happy to be free.

Many keys were inserted into my lock that night, but nothing fit and my lock, just like my heart, remained closed. Cue violins. But there’s still a small part of me that likes the idea of anything that makes people go up and talk to one another (being the shy girl that I am), so I’m going to keep thinking. Maybe this will be the year where I figure out the logistics behind my “Screw Valentine’s Day” party, and I bring people together, whether they like nuts or bolts, to find love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

I am taking a short break from putting price tags on the things that I own to write this blog. I am having a garage sale to rid myself of my excess crap. I’m looking at all this stuff I am about to unload and I am reminded of how much time and effort I put into the purchase of each and every object. For example, this chair, lamp, picture frame, candy dish. I saw these items in a store and thought, “this would be perfect for my living room, bedroom, den,” brought it to the counter, charged it and dragged it home. For a brief time this item held a place of importance in the room that it was intended for. Over time, the item lost its importance. It was first moved into the office, then a spare bedroom, then out to the garage, and finally it’s dragged out to the driveway with a round, fluorescent pink sticker that reads $5.00.

Then there are the things that I purchased because this particular item was going to make a drastic change or profoundly improve my life. I think about the amount of weight I was going to lose because the fat in my barbecued meat was going to drip right out of the George Forman pan, and not end up on my waistline. Turns out I like my fat in my meat, and it never did improve the size of my waistline. $6.00. Then there is the “Pet–icure.” With this, I was going to save tons of money giving my dog Mottie* pedicures all by myself instead of taking her to the groomer. Turns out she hates it, and bites at my knuckles every time I try to use it. $4.00. How about the Epilady which was going to effortlessly remove unwanted hair, leaving behind smooth, “touchable” skin. It f’ing hurts! $2.00.

At the end of the driveway sits a table that hosts all the things that I bought during late night bouts of insomnia. The Time Life box set of 1970’s love songs. All the crap music that I didn’t listen to in the 1970’s assembled into 10 cd’s. $8.00. The chopper that was going to slice and dice my way into delicious salads that is still in the original box. $1.50. The Chia head. Get it? It is like the Chia pet, only instead of fur, the stuff grows out of his head. Hysterically cute at 3:00 in the morning, stupid in the light of day. $.75.  The total gym. It was going to give me the same body as Christie Brinkley in 20-minute workouts, or maybe it was Chuck Norris’s body in 35 minutes. I can’t remember. $150.00.

Towards the middle of the driveway sits our ping-pong table. This item was going to provide hours of family fun. All we did is argue over who cheated at the score. $50.00. Laid upon the ping-pong table in no particular order are all the unwanted gifts I have received with a smile and a sincere “thank you,” and then immediately tossed into the closet. There is a silverware organizer for parties, that for the life of me I can’t remember who gave me. $3.50. There are boxes of stationary with unattractively dressed middle-aged women complaining about housework, men or menopause. $1.00 each. A hand-knitted wool ski mask and mitten set, a completely un-useful item for sunny California. $3.00.

On the front steps organized by subject are all the books I purchased and never read. “How to Survive a Divorce,” “How to Find Love After a Divorce,” “How to Quit Eating After a Divorce,” “Gorilla Divorce,” “How Not to Get Screwed in a Divorce,” “How to Screw your Ex in a Divorce.” $.50 each.

Laid out on the front lawn are all the broken items. The hose with a crack sealed up with duct tape. $.75. The Mr. Coffee maker without a carafe. $1.00. The Sorry game missing only the green pieces, thrown out when my son was forced to be green, a color he found intolerable. $2.00.

I stand at the foot of my driveway and survey all of the crap that I am about to sell, and wonder who would want all this shit. But they do. The people will arrive at 6:00 a.m., ignoring the words “no early birds, opens at 8:00,” that are clearly printed in the Penny Saver ad. They will dig through my stuff, asking if they can plug in the vacuum cleaner to see if it works, and I only hope that it doesn’t start a fire or blow a fuse when they do. $8.00. They will ask me if I have the missing pillowcase to a set of sheets. I will pretend to look even though I know I tossed it out when the cat threw up on it. $4.00. They will cluck with excitement over some opaque glass nightlight given to me by ex-husband. $3.50. And they will bargain successfully for the weed whacker with the missing whacker part. $7.00 marked down to $5.00.

How do I know this? How do I know that all of this stuff, that I consider to be crap and unworthy of spending a single minute longer as one of my possessions would be considered a valuable find to someone else? Because, I plan to take the $120.80 that I make on this garage sale, and head on over to Hancock Park next weekend where I plan to haggle over someone else’s crap that I know is really a valuable find.

Now I wonder if I can get six bucks for this lamp that is missing the shade. Some drunk person sat on it at a party last year.