Professional life as an attorney makes me anal about completing a task. And when you get to that certain age where most calls back east start with “guess who died[,]” you never want to leave anything important for another day. Probably explains why I completed the five novel – The Claire Saga – in four years. Do it now!
Now, if I’m lucky, you fine, five readers are the same fine, five readers that happened upon my blog from a few days ago (Claire’s Theorem – there can only be five readers of this blog at any given moment), wherein I discuss the purchase of a gun cabinet that physically tested my very narrow back.
Well, that gun cabinet came with just one key for both locks. But that is how you buy used items on Nextdoor.
When I tried the key back at Casa Claire, the bottom lock worked fine but the top lock stuck a little, so I took it apart, sprayed it with WD 40, and with a little jiggling, got it to work.
But I didn’t like the idea of only having the one key. It’s like asking the Universe to test you. And I didn’t want Luke to have any difficulties protecting or accessing his armament.
So, I took the strange key — tubular barrel, like the really old school skate keys — to my local ACE, but they couldn’t duplicate it. However, they pointed me in the direction of an expert who could.
Now Greely is about 20 minutes away, but luckily, Ted actually works out of a second shop on 4th Street, just west of the train tracks in Loveland, only about 10 minutes north of me.
Well Ted took a look at the very old key and said, “give me about 40 minutes, I’ll see what I can do.”
Good to his word, in the alloted time Ted came from out back with two spanking new copies of the original, and after charging me a fair price, told me that if I had any trouble, to give him a call.
When I got back, the keys worked fine on both locks, but the top lock still stuck a little. Still needed to jiggle it. But I gave the keys to Luke and wished him good luck.
A little while later, Luke told me the key was wedged stuck in the top lock. Luckily, it was jammed in the open position.
Now you have to understand that Luke is preternaturally strong for a human.
I blame his mother’s very questionable bloodline that involves references to bastards in the Court of Napoleon on her father’s side and a Catalonian/Spanish heritage on her mother’s, where it is rumored that there is still some neanderthal genes in the soup. l’Homme des Cavernes. So, I’m really not sure Lisa is completely homo sapien. At the peak of my very toxic masculinity, she could crush my grip and snap my wrists. She blamed her life as a gymnast for her orangutan strength.
So, Luke has a tendency of Hulking things with his grasp that normally require a gentle human touch. I’ve had to replace many turnable things over the years. Many doorknobs have been snapped right off. And you never want to try and open a jar that Luke has closed. Many of my grans baby bottles have had to have been tossed after he has prepared them. Fair warning, don’t ever shake his hand.
Anyway, Luke is not the lock jiggling type. Any physical resistance will be immediately overcome by inadvertent brute force.
So a few minutes later he returned and informed me that the key was wedged in the top lock and he didn’t want to snap it off. Thank God for small miracles.
So, I called Ted and explained the situation. Ted said that if I could disassemble the lock and bring it up to him, he’d see what he could do.
I did as instructed,
Once I had the lock out, I used the pliers and a lot of WD 40 to extricate the key,
then took it all up to Ted and showed him.
But before handing it over to Ted I showed him how the lock was sticking and again got the key wedged in the lock. He couldn’t free it by hand, so he said to leave it overnight.
Yesterday afternoon, Ted called me to say that he managed to free the key, clean and reassemble the lock mechanism, and when I went to retrieve it, he explained how I should gently operate the lock, a quarter turn, no more, no less, and that I should try and use just the new keys and keep the original – a very old and worn key – as a backup to the backup new key.
Before I left the store, I asked Ted to snap a selfie with me, so that future clients will know who to look for when searching for the best damn locksmith in NoCo.
Then I returned to Casa Claire and reassembled the lock, where it worked perfectly.
Handed the keys back off to Luke, with Ted’s detailed care instructions. Voila. C’est fini.
Thanks Ted.
Well, Thursday is upon us, which means I have to gather a ton of recyclables and drag it to the road, along with a ton of garbage – this next two generations can easily top off a landfill.
Then some kitties to cuddle and rounds to make.
Then see what the legal world presents.
You fine, five readers knock off whatever needs to get done before COB today. The last Friday in August is for dreaming, planning and skyving. No exceptions, no excuses.
And whatever else we all may get up to, let us make today a great one.
