A Tire Key?!?

Being the responsible car owner I took my car to a local garage to have the oil changed and tires rotated. As I'm sitting in the waiting area, flipping through pages of Sports Illustrated, a mechanic comes over and asks me for the tire key. Since my car was already on the rack it was obvious that he hadn't mispoke in an effort to obtain the ignition key so I politely asked him to repeat the question. A tire key? In front of all the other - I'm sure much more knowledgeable - car owners I confessed that I'd never heard of such an item, nor did I have the slightest idea where one would be in relation to my car. At this point, fortunately for me, the mechanic started talking slowly using short words. He explained that the tires on Volkswagen vehicles are protected from theft by a lock on the tires lug nuts and each car comes equipped with a unique key that will allow the tires to be removed and in my case rotated as requested. Seizing the learning opportunity, he showed me a similar tire key for another automobile and even took me into the bay where he demonstrated how such a key is used to unlock the lug nuts. Since the grease tank for our car is situated where a spare tire would normally be I assume that the tire key along with all the other extra fixings were removed during the conversion and are probably covered with spider webs taking up space in our basement. The mechanic kindly explains to me why this is a bad idea (he would obviously never allow his tire key to be subjected to hairy spiders) and encourages me to locate the vital key, come back to the garage, and have my tires rotated. As you might guess, as soon as I leave the facility I call Craig to see if he knows about our special super locked tires and am comforted by his similar confusion (a what?!?). Once he arrives home the tire key (and jack and other assorted tools) is quickly retrieved from our basement.