Hey, SUSAN!
Mar. 30th, 2006 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phosfateYou remember our second or third MediaWest, when I accidentally locked the keys in the rental car? And I had a total crazy-ape-batshit hysterical squealy must-eat-planet-of-the-asparagus-people fucking meltdown and cried like Gloria Bunker until the AAA guy showed up? Well, listen to this:
Yesterday morning, when I was leaving the house, I fiddled with the key that's supposed to work the deadbolt lock on the back door. It didn't, as near as I could tell, actually do anything. I made a note to work on it when I had actual time, because it would be nice if I could make it go from the outside.
I got home last night after a couple hours' fooling around (needed matboard, valet hook, new issue of Newtype, etc.), got out the key to let myself in the back door, unlocked it, and...kunk. So, I tried the key again. Kunk kunk.
Well, I thought, I musta locked the deadbolt after all. I got out the deadbolt key, put it in the lock, and...no turny.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fucksticks on a fuck.
Went around to the front door. I have a key. Works fine. Unfortunately, the steel storm door with two layers of glass, a layer of screens, and a decorative grille displaying the house number were all between me and the front door.
I went back to the back door and tried the keys again. And stared at it. Then I went round to the front door, and stared at it. There's a police substation across the street, but the most they can really do is help me break a window safely. Perhaps later. I could call a locksmith, but that's like a hundred and fifty dollars, and I would prefer to spend that on, like, food. Plus who knows when he'd get there. And Lost is on and I already missed one because Mom was selfishly kicking it and I'm not missing another in the same month. 'Cause it's Lost for Christ's sake.
I look at the hinges on the storm door. I try a dime on one of the screws, but this isn't an episode of that other great Wednesday night drama, Search, and my confidence in American currency is not justified.
So I pad across the lawn to Chris and Nina next door, and ring their bell. Nina comes up, all cute in lavender jammies and unidentifiable accent. "Blah blah locked out," I say. "Blah blah borrow screwdriver? Blah Lost." "Of course!" she says. "Philips or the other thing?" "The other thing." "Be right back." So she brings me a screwdriver. "Call if you need Chris to lift anything heavy!"
It's kind of a pussy compared to my screwdriver, which I have just now decided is called The Widowmaker, but it gets the job done. In ten minutes, I've got the door off its hinges and am inside my house. In five more minutes, I've got the power drill out of the kitchen and have re-hung the door. Which is good because it's getting fucking dark out. Return screwdriver, wash feeeeelthy hands, etc. Call sister to tell her how much I fucking rock. Watch Lost. Frame vintage V for Vendetta comics poster. Completely full of self, because I am Q.E.D! I am MacGyver! I am Jerry fucking Robinson!
I still have no idea how to break into a rental car, but now know that's AAA's job anyway.
Love,
Ann
Yesterday morning, when I was leaving the house, I fiddled with the key that's supposed to work the deadbolt lock on the back door. It didn't, as near as I could tell, actually do anything. I made a note to work on it when I had actual time, because it would be nice if I could make it go from the outside.
I got home last night after a couple hours' fooling around (needed matboard, valet hook, new issue of Newtype, etc.), got out the key to let myself in the back door, unlocked it, and...kunk. So, I tried the key again. Kunk kunk.
Well, I thought, I musta locked the deadbolt after all. I got out the deadbolt key, put it in the lock, and...no turny.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fucksticks on a fuck.
Went around to the front door. I have a key. Works fine. Unfortunately, the steel storm door with two layers of glass, a layer of screens, and a decorative grille displaying the house number were all between me and the front door.
I went back to the back door and tried the keys again. And stared at it. Then I went round to the front door, and stared at it. There's a police substation across the street, but the most they can really do is help me break a window safely. Perhaps later. I could call a locksmith, but that's like a hundred and fifty dollars, and I would prefer to spend that on, like, food. Plus who knows when he'd get there. And Lost is on and I already missed one because Mom was selfishly kicking it and I'm not missing another in the same month. 'Cause it's Lost for Christ's sake.
I look at the hinges on the storm door. I try a dime on one of the screws, but this isn't an episode of that other great Wednesday night drama, Search, and my confidence in American currency is not justified.
So I pad across the lawn to Chris and Nina next door, and ring their bell. Nina comes up, all cute in lavender jammies and unidentifiable accent. "Blah blah locked out," I say. "Blah blah borrow screwdriver? Blah Lost." "Of course!" she says. "Philips or the other thing?" "The other thing." "Be right back." So she brings me a screwdriver. "Call if you need Chris to lift anything heavy!"
It's kind of a pussy compared to my screwdriver, which I have just now decided is called The Widowmaker, but it gets the job done. In ten minutes, I've got the door off its hinges and am inside my house. In five more minutes, I've got the power drill out of the kitchen and have re-hung the door. Which is good because it's getting fucking dark out. Return screwdriver, wash feeeeelthy hands, etc. Call sister to tell her how much I fucking rock. Watch Lost. Frame vintage V for Vendetta comics poster. Completely full of self, because I am Q.E.D! I am MacGyver! I am Jerry fucking Robinson!
I still have no idea how to break into a rental car, but now know that's AAA's job anyway.
Love,
Ann
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-03-30 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 02:48 pm (UTC)I'm not worthy to comment in your journal!!!!
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Date: 2006-03-30 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-03-30 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 04:49 pm (UTC)You win at everything. Here, have this planet.
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Date: 2006-03-30 05:12 pm (UTC)On the other hand, FUCK YEAH!
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Date: 2006-03-30 04:59 pm (UTC)One time we went down to Mom's (she was away or something but we were supposed to stay at her house) and we didn't have the key and she'd not put the extra key in the usual place, so we were able to jigger my old bedroom window and I got in. Of course, I was younger and so much more limber...
We were locked out here once, but we jiggered the den window and sent Michelle in.
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Date: 2006-03-30 05:04 pm (UTC)Our old house, on the other hand, was pathetically easy to break into. When we first got Pudy, her mother from next door would get inside the house (sliding door in back, mysterious randomly-opening door in front) and come find her. The 60s suburban crank windows in the basement would open with a mild shove, after you popped the screen out (which took a slightly harder shove). I don't know why we were never robbed.
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Date: 2006-03-30 05:03 pm (UTC)You just don't have the proper accessories. (http://www.trunkmonkeyad.com/)
JSM
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Date: 2006-03-30 05:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 05:20 pm (UTC)JSM
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Date: 2006-03-30 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-30 05:14 pm (UTC)True story: RDA got locked out of his house during the time he was in McGyver. He's the anti-McGyver and is generally hopeless with problems of this sort, so he picked up a bench on his porch and flung it through his front picture window to get into the house. So some of RDA's buddies got together and painted the bench in red and white to look like a Swiss Army knife, so that RDA now had a Swiss Army bench that could perform more than one task, as it were: you could sit on it or you could use it to get into your house!
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Date: 2006-03-30 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-01 05:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 08:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 04:35 am (UTC)Even if you haven't received the Nefarious Plot Welcome Package yet.
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Date: 2006-04-01 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 07:44 pm (UTC)I had to break into my house last fall, but I had to borrow a ladder and a small wedge to pry open my den window. But I did it. and then bent it back into shape, feeling like a Supa-hero.
Go to you, far more MacGyvery than me.
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