Divine Intervention

I know I complain a lot but seriously, you guys, there's usually someone looking out for me.

Last month while I was in NH poor Kath and Alex had a cage match with my door lock. Between the two of them they must have spent at least an hour wrangling that thing into submission. Now, it's needed a little bit of regular maintenance for a few years but it's never more than a few minutes. I told them my tricks and when I came home it worked fine.

Tonight was also a kind of canine divine providence situation. On my way home I stopped to buy pet food and who should walk in and goose me with his cold, wet nose but Bobby! He brought Kath with him so we headed home together with our loot to get Em. Inside, quick Girl Scout Cookie fix (you should totally get Kath to do a video demo of the "cookie straw" thing!), grab the leash and head out. Of course, wait until you're outside the building to realize that Kath doesn't have her loot with her. So I sent her up to get it and I kept the dogs and she couldn't get in! I went and tried and man, this was nothing like what has ever happened to me with that lock. It was a whole other ball park of lock fucked upness. I didn't mess with it because it was clear from the outset that no good was going to come of it.

Long walk with Kath and then with our friend N for our weight loss meeting and then came back and called the on call maintenance dude to help. He fiddled and faddled and fiddle faddled and I cajoled and convinced before I finally realized that he was trying to limp the old crappy lock along because he knew that I'd have to pay if he replaced the cylinder and he didn't want me to have to do that. Well, man, if I'd known that I would have told him to go get the freaking cylinder already! He went, he searched, there was high searching, there was low searching and he found the one last appropriate cylinder available. His supervisor, when called for the price, told him to tell me to use the top lock and they'd take care of it tomorrow. This guy, though, he didn't want to walk all the way back just to tell me that so he brought the cylinder.

Doesn't seem special enough for you? How about if I tell you that I don't have a top lock?

He didn't know it at the time, either. Amid stories of his first dog from his childhood on a small island he replaced the cylinder and gave me my reciept ($28 to be billed by the management company later) and I gave him a twenty for being so cool. And off he went.

A few minutes later he returned and made me come outside and test the lock with the key, because he wanted to be sure. Very sure.

Seriously, I know this is boring everyday shit but I feel kind of like the luckiest girl in the world and I'm telling you I've never had a lock that works so smoothly. Seems worth every penny of $48. Then again I've never bought a lock before so I have no idea what the going rate is.