Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Little Brothers
Today I am indebted to my little brother.
It was a crazy day between visiting with a friend before we leave Indy, picking up Noora who had been at a sleepover, cancelling my gym membership, picking up school transcripts, and trying to hammer out a dozen other details. At one point, I ran into my house for just a few seconds and managed to run out again without my keys, and with all the doors locked.
We usually leave a spare key with a neighbor, but for some reason my husband had moved that spare key into the husband's car, which was, naturally, at work not in the garage. So that was out.
We used to have a lock box with a spare key, but it got very stiff and rusty and so we haven't been using it for the past year or so, so that was out.
I used to have a spare house key in my car, but we had given that to our daughter a while ago and I never got a new spare.
I used to carry a spare car key in my wallet, but had removed that a while back when my parents were here, and never replaced it. (Can you tell it is not that uncommon for me to lock my keys in the house or the car?)
My hubby didn't really want to come home from work at 1 in the afternoon, and I didn't exactly want to sit in the hot car with my daughter and my friend for a few hours until he came back to let us in and let me get my car keys.
And then it dawned on me -- my little brother once taught me how to pick a lock with a credit card. In fact, his demonstration a few years ago of how quickly he could pick our front door lock led to us putting in a new jamb protector that makes it impossible to pick the lock. Our two back doors are difficult because of all the insulation, which gets in the way and makes it hard to slide the card in.
But we had one door that I could pick... and did... in an alarming 15 seconds. (Yes, I'm going to go get a deadbolt for that one, or one of those door jamb protectors. That or a big, mean, dog!)
I have to admit that the knowledge of how to pick a lock with a credit card is not exactly what I would have expected to learn from my little brother, who is now an upstanding citizen, if a bit individualistic. Nor is it a skill I would have ever anticipated to come in handy.
Fortunately, today it saved me several hot, boring hours. Just goes to show, you never know when you might need to know how to break and enter... ¶ 9:15 PM
It was a crazy day between visiting with a friend before we leave Indy, picking up Noora who had been at a sleepover, cancelling my gym membership, picking up school transcripts, and trying to hammer out a dozen other details. At one point, I ran into my house for just a few seconds and managed to run out again without my keys, and with all the doors locked.
We usually leave a spare key with a neighbor, but for some reason my husband had moved that spare key into the husband's car, which was, naturally, at work not in the garage. So that was out.
We used to have a lock box with a spare key, but it got very stiff and rusty and so we haven't been using it for the past year or so, so that was out.
I used to have a spare house key in my car, but we had given that to our daughter a while ago and I never got a new spare.
I used to carry a spare car key in my wallet, but had removed that a while back when my parents were here, and never replaced it. (Can you tell it is not that uncommon for me to lock my keys in the house or the car?)
My hubby didn't really want to come home from work at 1 in the afternoon, and I didn't exactly want to sit in the hot car with my daughter and my friend for a few hours until he came back to let us in and let me get my car keys.
And then it dawned on me -- my little brother once taught me how to pick a lock with a credit card. In fact, his demonstration a few years ago of how quickly he could pick our front door lock led to us putting in a new jamb protector that makes it impossible to pick the lock. Our two back doors are difficult because of all the insulation, which gets in the way and makes it hard to slide the card in.
But we had one door that I could pick... and did... in an alarming 15 seconds. (Yes, I'm going to go get a deadbolt for that one, or one of those door jamb protectors. That or a big, mean, dog!)
I have to admit that the knowledge of how to pick a lock with a credit card is not exactly what I would have expected to learn from my little brother, who is now an upstanding citizen, if a bit individualistic. Nor is it a skill I would have ever anticipated to come in handy.
Fortunately, today it saved me several hot, boring hours. Just goes to show, you never know when you might need to know how to break and enter... ¶ 9:15 PM
