The Key to Everything

Text conversation:

Me: (Picture of a clock winding key included) Is this to the clock on the living room windows floor shelf? Yours or X's?

The Other Guy:  I think that's the key to the anniversary clock.

WISIMH:  Oh goody! We're playing a version of Answer a Different Question where you beg the question by making more questions arise to grab me around the ankles like standing in a pit of snakes. The best way to reply to my text would have been "Yes" (or no).  "Mine" (or X's).  I infer you aimed your answer in the general direction the first question only, and further, that your answer was no, it's the key to another clock - maybe. Montaigne said what is not know is more important than what is. He would have run screaming from the room at this point.

M: Who has the clock?

TOG: I'm pretty sure X took it… I should've kept it.

WISIMH:  I know EXACTLY how you fee: that gnawing regret. I'm pretty sure I should've made some better choices in my youth, like choosing to live with you until I lost my mind. I should've kept it. So now we're playing a game I like to call Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I think we're driving the conversation down a pretty straight road and you veer into the bushes without slowing down. We could be heading through tall grass straight toward a cliff. My part in this game is to grab the steering wheel and try to keep us from plunging to our conversational death on the rocks of nonsense below. Best to try not to jerk the wheel too suddenly or you'll could fall out the window. Instead, I'll adopt a strategy to gradually get us from the brink of disaster back to the main road to our conversational destination. You know, about what I should do with the fucking key.

M:  Should I send X the key? I'm sure he'd send the clock back if you asked.

TOG: Yeah well---send the key to him.

M. Ok.

WISIMH:  Let the happy hour begin!