Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The key to life is finding your spiritual home....not breaking the key

At Long last I find myself in a position to write a blog entry. Its 16:49 I arrived in work this morning at 08:50 so I feel that entitles me to finish for the day (it’s the first time in two weeks that I’ve not had to work at night (it’s all about fifteen hour days here). Oasis enocurage us to work hard and also rest hard…so either I’m working hard or resting as hard as I can (that means doing absolutely nothing)….layed flat out on a bed somewhere or sometimes I just find a street corner to fall asleep on, comfier than you would expect.

Saturday was an especially long day….got up at seven to be at the centre for eight. Stewarded an event called equipped to lead until 6pm and eventually got home at around seven. I was really knackered, more mentally than physically. After four months of consistent smiling and engaging with hundreds of new people my head is beginning to feel a little fatigued….I don’t really enjoy feeling like this though because I get my kicks from being around people….Anyway I got back to the house at seven and relieved got my keys out to unlock the door. As I put the key in lock I thought about the food awaiting me and the comfy couch I could collapse in. Unlocked the bottom lock and the top lock and went to open the final lock. Put key in the lock and tried to turn it…..Strangely it didn’t move. Puzzled I tried and tried to get the lock open but it wouldn’t budge

(we’ve just moved into a new house and we got keys cut, we had never checked to see if all the keys actually worked)

I ran to Tesco’s just down the road to get my team mate Katherines keys (she was doing some shopping) and when I arrived back at the house her keys also wouldn’t open the lock. The only person who had keys I actually knew worked was Sam and he was in central london somewhere. I really didn’t want to go hunting for him. I decided to call him and explain the situation. As he answered my call I felt the key move in the lock and decided to hang up and attempt to force the lock, perhaps the key did work but it was just stiff. For about ten minutes I forced the lock until it was at a point where it was stuck….i was sure that if I could move it a little further round the door would open. I decided that I would ask my neighbour if she had a hammer.

After explaining to my neighbout that I wasn’t trying to break in she got me a hammer and a pair of pliers. I was pleased ot receive the pliers because I knew they would work better than the hammer. Once back at my house I placed the pliers on the key and turned…click went the lock and I felt a sense of relief knowing that I could now get in the house. As I pulled the key out the lock I noticed that in fact I had snapped the end of it off and in fact the door wasn’t open….Instead I had snapped the key in the lock. Gutted is the only word I can use to explain the way I felt at that point. Not only was I tired, hungry and cold. I was also locked out until I found a locksmith. Now, late on a Saturday night emergency locksmiths aren’t cheap….As I called round the different companies I was quoted prices of £85 - £120. Eventually I managed to get a company to come out for £70 within the hour.

An hour passed…..no locksmith (it was freezing that night)…..two hours passed no locksmith…..three hours passed and eventually on the horizon I saw transit van headlights….i was in the house within another hour. So what have I learned from this expereince?? If something won’t move….don’t force it!

3 comments:

Rach said...

Again, why did it not occur to you that using plyers to get into your house must mean that something would break/goworng?!

Out of interest do the new keys work?

Pete Brierley said...

I've tagged you. You must respond.

Unknown said...

Few days ago I had almost the same situation, it was the drama of the day (long story short: I had no housekey, The house door was locked) I needed to call out a locksmith to let me in. Within 30 minutes time, the locksmith arrived. He was a tall and fair guy. He brought along all his gears from lightweight to heavyweight. Probably he has a lot of work and he came after one hour. But he opened in 5 minutes. So, I was really happy. Hiring a good locksmith is never cheap. But hiring a dishonest or incompetent one is always expensive.