A quick lesson learned about procrastination that cost $85. As the owner of a vehicle too old and plebian to have one of those 64-bit encrypted key fobs that knows you and your family dog, the key to my truck has long shown the 16 years of wear.

Copies of that key bought at the local hardware store worked in the ignition, door locks, but not the gas cap door. What’s more, one of them broke after being bent inside my jeans pocket.

So for a couple of years I’ve been meaning to stop by the dealer and order a couple of keys made off the VIN because these are much better than copies of a key—new or old.

Putting off that 10-minute errand came back to haunt me yesterday when I discovered the key wouldn’t open the locked door. It was then I saw it was only three-quarters there. What’s this!? Damn, spare key is two miles away, three places to be in two hours.

Old keys don't fade away, they break off in the ignition.

A call to a road-side assistance service—the one at the beginning of the alphabet—summoned an automotive locksmith who could not only open the door, retrieve the broken bit of key, but also make new keys from the VIN, like a dealer.

My share of this lesson: $85 for two keys that would have cost about $30 from the dealer.

If you don’t have some sort of roadside help, might want to ask around for a recommended automotive locksmith. Keep the contact info handy in case you drop the über fob in the trunk and close it five times in a row, which convinced an aquintance’s car that he knew it was there and wanted to lock it in there.

If you’re like me and own an older, simpler vehicle with a plain metal key, one way to slow down how quickly it wears out is to carry the ignition key by itself and a spare with the two dozen others most Americans carry around.