My Night of Nights

Well the family's out of town again so to celebrate, I locked myself out of the house and made a new friend.

That's right blogfans, I put in a late night at work Tuesday, ate dinner in the car, and arrived at my chateau just after 9 pm for a relaxing evening. Only to find that my garage door opener did not work. The thing has been on the fritz for awhile and I had written it off as broken until my wife had me test it two weeks ago, and suddenly it worked! So she left town with the kids on Tuesday morning, neither of us thinking twice about the garage door--until I get home Tuesday night, and my clicker's not working.

My house key is only to the entry that's inside the garage--both the front and back door have different keys, but I keep an extra key to the front door hidden inside the garage--a great idea if you can actually get in the garage! So after half an hour of trying to break into my own house, with the cat giving me a hard time--following me around needling me about my ineptitude--I finally called a locksmith.

The Yellow Book company had conveniently left a new printing of their signature series on my doorstep, so I found the first full-page ad I saw with a picture of a home ("Locked Out?" read the title), and thought I had found my destiny. In the back of my mind I thought about going to Wal-Mart and picking up a battery for the garage door remote, but it was 9:30, Wal-Mart might not have the tiny battery that was needed, and it might not fix my clicker--so I called the locksmith for an estimate, he said he'd arrive in 25 minutes and it would be $29 plus labor. "What's the labor?" I asked. "Depends on how hard it is to get inside," he said in his heavily-accented voice.

He arrived right on time in his beater with no outward representation of his company. He mumbled that he might have to destroy my lock if he couldn't pick it. "Fine," I said. He gave me a choice of doors for him to "crack"--and then at my suggestion, went up the steps to the front door. I noticed he looked like a failed solo act from Menuedo, but he seemed nice enough.

I have a knob lock and a deadbolt on the front door--neither one did he attempt to pick, instead he blasted them both with his DeWalt drill. One hole to the knob and three tough grinds to the deadbolt. The price? $155--jerk! Then after ripping me off, he wanted to talk about cars and whether I'd recommend a Toyota (I did).

Then in the morning guess what I had to do? Spend $25 on a new knob and deadbolt, plus lose 90 minutes going to the store, installing them, and cleaning up the metal shards all over the entry way and front porch.

But my story hasn't ended--guess what I did once inside the house at 10:15 last night? I thought I'd pick up a little, so I emptied the trash pails from the two bathrooms into a big black garbage bag, which I set on the floor of the master bathroom. Remembering that this toilet was a little finicky from the day before, I decided to give it a flush. It filled, and filled, and filled--so I dropped some towels on the floor. But it kept coming so I dashed out of the bathroom, ran to the kids' bathroom for the towels from their last bath, and raced back to the master.

Along the way, I tripped over the black garbage bag. As I was mopping up all the water and plunging the toilet, I saw big splotches of blood all over the bathroom floor. Guess what? I cut my toe open, grazing the broken glass from a Yankee Candle knock-off that my wife had tossed in the bathroom garbage. I'm a lucky stiff, I tell ya.

Oh and the kicker? I did find a mini-battery for the garage remote--and it worked. So I spent $180 plus the hassle, when $2.50 would have got me the battery I needed, plus an extra for a rainy day. I guess I wasn't meant to be left alone.

Comments

[T Mark]

John,
I thought I was having a bad day.
I feel so much better after reading your story.
You spend all that time living thru it and then you sit down to tell the world about it.
For me, it was time well spent.
Thanks a million.

T Mark

[johnvano]

T Mark--Anything I can do to help! Just imagine my joy on Wednesday night at the simple joy of opening my own door unassisted again!!

[kilsan]

potential new nicknames to replace vano:

a) gimpy
b) sucka
c) neither; vano is too cool