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Dec. 24th, 2004 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katallisonToday I bring you two important life lessons, courtesy of Kat's School of Painfully Acquired Life Wisdom. (Our motto: "Oh My God I Am Such a Dumbfuck")
Lesson One: Do not lock yourself out of your house on a five-below-zero Christmas Eve.
So I decided late this morning to head out and do the last of my errands (wrapping paper! I have no wrapping paper, nor hooch!). I put on my coat, stuck my hand in my pocket, felt some keys, stepped out the door, pulled it firmly shut behind me, reached into my pocket, and found -- my work keys. Which is an entirely different set from my at-home keys (house, car, garage). I still don't know how this happened, since I *never* keep my work keys in my coat pocket, but anyway. So I cursed a minute, and then rang my upstairs neighbors' doorbell. And waited. And rang it again. And cursed some more. And finally acknowledged that they were out, which was bad news, because they're the only people who have a spare key to my place, and they are often gone for a day or two at the holidays, visiting their daughter.
So I set off for the wonderfully helpful neighborhood hardware store, which by great luck was open, and asked Grant, the pretty young guy working there today, if he knew of a good locksmith. He phoned a place, handed me the receiver, and right away I discovered I was again lucky, by getting not only an actual human being, but a genuine old-school Nice Minnesota Guy on the line. He made sympathetic sounds, got my name and address, and said he'd be there in 20 minutes.
I clomped back to the house and had settled down for a shivery wait on the front steps, when ... up drove my upstairs neighbors, who'd only been out getting some groceries. They let me in, I thawed my feet, and then went back out to wait for Nice Locksmith Guy, who, when he arrived (in exactly 20 minutes) made more sympathetic sounds and said that unfortunately, he was going to have to charge me $65 for the service call, for which he apologized at length ("Yah, I know it's dumb, the deal is I'll get in trouble if I don't"), while I at the same time was also apologizing at length for being such an idiot. I gave him my credit card and signed the slip and then gave him a twenty for coming all the way out on Christmas Eve, which he tried to refuse but I made him take.
I re-gathered all my stuff, drove off, did my first errand, and when I got to the cash register, discovered -- I didn't have my credit card. Which brings us to:
Lesson Two: If you are dumb enough to lock yourself out of the house, at least have enough brains to get your credit card back from the locksmith.
I freaked, realizing I didn't even know the name of the guy's company, since Grant the Pretty Hardware Store Boy had placed the call for me. So I drove back to the hardware store, got the name and number from Grant, drove home, called Nice Locksmith Guy, and got him *just* as he was about to leave for the day. We traded another round of mutual apologies ("Aw, heck, I don't know how I coulda done such a dumb thing, I'll just drive up there and bring it back to you then!" "No, I am *such* an idiot, all my fault, I'll be down there in 15 minutes to pick it up!").
I burned rubber getting down to the shop, where Nice Locksmith Guy (who'd stayed on well past closing time) had my card waiting, and also insisted on giving me a couple of business calendars. We had a final round of mutual extensive apologies, wished each other Merry Christmas, and I made my way home, where I am going to *stay* for the rest of the day, avoiding dangerous machinery, sharp pointed objects, or any systems or logistics more complex than opening a beer bottle.
(And I wish I could scan in the cover art on the locksmith business calendar for you--it's an amazing Norman-Rockwellesque painting of a small-town street scene, circa the early 1950s, with the cafe and soda fountain, the clothing store with a "Childrens Back to School Sale" sign in the window, the Studebakers and Ramblers parked at the curb, the service station with the old round-topped pumps.)
Lesson One: Do not lock yourself out of your house on a five-below-zero Christmas Eve.
So I decided late this morning to head out and do the last of my errands (wrapping paper! I have no wrapping paper, nor hooch!). I put on my coat, stuck my hand in my pocket, felt some keys, stepped out the door, pulled it firmly shut behind me, reached into my pocket, and found -- my work keys. Which is an entirely different set from my at-home keys (house, car, garage). I still don't know how this happened, since I *never* keep my work keys in my coat pocket, but anyway. So I cursed a minute, and then rang my upstairs neighbors' doorbell. And waited. And rang it again. And cursed some more. And finally acknowledged that they were out, which was bad news, because they're the only people who have a spare key to my place, and they are often gone for a day or two at the holidays, visiting their daughter.
So I set off for the wonderfully helpful neighborhood hardware store, which by great luck was open, and asked Grant, the pretty young guy working there today, if he knew of a good locksmith. He phoned a place, handed me the receiver, and right away I discovered I was again lucky, by getting not only an actual human being, but a genuine old-school Nice Minnesota Guy on the line. He made sympathetic sounds, got my name and address, and said he'd be there in 20 minutes.
I clomped back to the house and had settled down for a shivery wait on the front steps, when ... up drove my upstairs neighbors, who'd only been out getting some groceries. They let me in, I thawed my feet, and then went back out to wait for Nice Locksmith Guy, who, when he arrived (in exactly 20 minutes) made more sympathetic sounds and said that unfortunately, he was going to have to charge me $65 for the service call, for which he apologized at length ("Yah, I know it's dumb, the deal is I'll get in trouble if I don't"), while I at the same time was also apologizing at length for being such an idiot. I gave him my credit card and signed the slip and then gave him a twenty for coming all the way out on Christmas Eve, which he tried to refuse but I made him take.
I re-gathered all my stuff, drove off, did my first errand, and when I got to the cash register, discovered -- I didn't have my credit card. Which brings us to:
Lesson Two: If you are dumb enough to lock yourself out of the house, at least have enough brains to get your credit card back from the locksmith.
I freaked, realizing I didn't even know the name of the guy's company, since Grant the Pretty Hardware Store Boy had placed the call for me. So I drove back to the hardware store, got the name and number from Grant, drove home, called Nice Locksmith Guy, and got him *just* as he was about to leave for the day. We traded another round of mutual apologies ("Aw, heck, I don't know how I coulda done such a dumb thing, I'll just drive up there and bring it back to you then!" "No, I am *such* an idiot, all my fault, I'll be down there in 15 minutes to pick it up!").
I burned rubber getting down to the shop, where Nice Locksmith Guy (who'd stayed on well past closing time) had my card waiting, and also insisted on giving me a couple of business calendars. We had a final round of mutual extensive apologies, wished each other Merry Christmas, and I made my way home, where I am going to *stay* for the rest of the day, avoiding dangerous machinery, sharp pointed objects, or any systems or logistics more complex than opening a beer bottle.
(And I wish I could scan in the cover art on the locksmith business calendar for you--it's an amazing Norman-Rockwellesque painting of a small-town street scene, circa the early 1950s, with the cafe and soda fountain, the clothing store with a "Childrens Back to School Sale" sign in the window, the Studebakers and Ramblers parked at the curb, the service station with the old round-topped pumps.)