We finally met our downstairs neighbors, due to the fact that we had locked ourselves out of our apartment. What began as an idea to go pick up some beer ended with our wallets lightened by €114.
As soon as Jack closed the door to our place, he turned to me and said "Do you have your keys?" Turns out I hadn't thought to grab them. Neither had he. As we hadn't yet exited the building, we woefully made our way downstairs to see if the people below us were home. Thankfully they were, and they were kind enough to let us use their phone and impose on them for a half hour while we waited for the guy to show up. Their place is much nicer than ours, probably due to the fact that they own more than secondhand trash and Ikea furniture. I told them they were welcome to lock themselves out of their place and hang out with us at any time, but they had to give us a half hour's advance notice.
When the locksmith finally showed up, he was, naturally, a burly tattooed guy who looked like a criminal who had been convinced to go straight at some point. He pulled out the tools of his trade, sorted through them for the perfect implement, and came up with...a piece of plastic. Essentially he used a credit card to jimmy our lock open. It was actually a bit more flexible than a credit card, and he sprayed a little WD-40 on it, but the technique was the same as in the movies. We jokingly said that we'd have to try that ourselves next time we locked ourselves out, and he countered defensively that it was a special kind of plastic and we wouldn't be able to do it. Thankfully our main front door is a bit more secure.
5 comments:
Not picking up your keys when you leave the house. Wow! Another shared Strawn trait. See you later in the week. MJ
I beg to differ.
I would just like to say that this was the first time this has ever happened to me ever.
Except, okay, this one time right when I moved to Vermont. I ended up having to hang around the terrible law school meet and greet thing until my landlords came home. I spent hours hanging out with this person who was the spitting image of the John Lithgow character in the World According to Garp. Even then my landlords never showed up, so I ended up finding a way into their house through the basement to get at the extra keys, letting myself into my place, then replacing their keys so they were none the wiser. But perhaps I've disclosed too much. This is why I don't blog.
Hate to break it to you, Boba, but CJ and I were adopted. Suckah!
Jack, let's not forget the time you got locked IN your basement apartment and had to ascend the interior staircase and knock on the door for the first (and only) time to get the attention of your Vietnamese overlords, who spoke so little English that they had to contact their son to come and deal with your broken doorknob. I thought I was going to be trapped in the subterranean Linoleum Chamber forever with that horrid little dog yapping on the floor above.
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