So about 34 milliseconds after I shut the door behind me it occurred to me that the keys to my front door where on the ledge right inside. And as fate would have it, so were the landlord's set of master keys, as I had borrowed them a few hours prior to let the neighbor into his apartment (don't ask why he didn't have his keys).
So here I am at 2am, locked outside my apartment with nothing but the keys to my car (luckily). So the only logical thing to do at the time was to ransack my car to see if I could find any helpful tools. Now, lo and behold, I discovered that I had some tools in my trunk left over from a project I worked on last summer - a screwdriver, a saw, some nails, pliers, and a mallet. Desperate and open to any solution, I grabbed them all, and headed back to my front door. So there I was with this abundance of tools, and it occurred to me: "What would tex do?".
I put myself in the mindset of Tex - how can I break into my own apartment? So I started examining all the tools, and tried to imagine what comments Tex would have while doing just that. "This nail might might have made a good lock-pick if it wasn't so darn thick". But I tried it on the key-hole anyway. "Well that's not gonna work". The saw: "Seems a little extreme. Besides, the blade is duller than a burnt out lightbulb". The mallet: "If I swing this thing just right, the door-handle should come clean off, giving me access to the lock-mechanics. Hmmm".
So There I was in in front of my door, legs out, knees bent, with a five-pound mallet raised above my head. I took a moment to digest the matter, and see if I could think of any better ideas, if not only to acknowledge the humor of it all. Bam!!! Bam, Again!!! Bam, a Third Time!!! And with that, the handle flew of at the speed of a bullet, barely grazing my left knee. Success!
I knelt down on my left knee, and peeked into the obliterated mess. "Well the lock's gone...but so is the handle. The rod that was attached to the lock seems to still be in there. If only I could reach it". I reached into my pocket, and pulled out the pliers. "These look just skinny enough to fit into the hole where the lock-rod is". So I reached the pliers into the hole, grabbed a hold of the rod, and twisted. "Click!". The door was open. *CutScene*
Bests, Rockefeller
So here I am at 2am, locked outside my apartment with nothing but the keys to my car (luckily). So the only logical thing to do at the time was to ransack my car to see if I could find any helpful tools. Now, lo and behold, I discovered that I had some tools in my trunk left over from a project I worked on last summer - a screwdriver, a saw, some nails, pliers, and a mallet. Desperate and open to any solution, I grabbed them all, and headed back to my front door. So there I was with this abundance of tools, and it occurred to me: "What would tex do?".
I put myself in the mindset of Tex - how can I break into my own apartment? So I started examining all the tools, and tried to imagine what comments Tex would have while doing just that. "This nail might might have made a good lock-pick if it wasn't so darn thick". But I tried it on the key-hole anyway. "Well that's not gonna work". The saw: "Seems a little extreme. Besides, the blade is duller than a burnt out lightbulb". The mallet: "If I swing this thing just right, the door-handle should come clean off, giving me access to the lock-mechanics. Hmmm".
So There I was in in front of my door, legs out, knees bent, with a five-pound mallet raised above my head. I took a moment to digest the matter, and see if I could think of any better ideas, if not only to acknowledge the humor of it all. Bam!!! Bam, Again!!! Bam, a Third Time!!! And with that, the handle flew of at the speed of a bullet, barely grazing my left knee. Success!
I knelt down on my left knee, and peeked into the obliterated mess. "Well the lock's gone...but so is the handle. The rod that was attached to the lock seems to still be in there. If only I could reach it". I reached into my pocket, and pulled out the pliers. "These look just skinny enough to fit into the hole where the lock-rod is". So I reached the pliers into the hole, grabbed a hold of the rod, and twisted. "Click!". The door was open. *CutScene*
Bests, Rockefeller
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do"
"ERROR: Error Code Does Not Indicate An Error"
"ERROR: Error Code Does Not Indicate An Error"
Cute story. A similar incident happened to me during December even though I wasn't actually there to experience the agony in person.
I have two cats. My friend has two cats. He was going on a short vacation and asked me to watch his cats for a couple days. I told him I was going on a long vacation and needed him to watch my cats. So we struck a deal. He'd leave his cats with my cats and I'd watch the cats for a couple of days and leave food and water out after I left on Friday. He would return home that Sunday and go over to my house to reclaim his cats and check on my cats. Seems simple right?
Sunday comes and his plane is snowed in up north. He can't get home. I'm in Barcelona on vacation and definitely can't get home. We call a third friend and tell him where a copy of the key to my house can be found. He gets the key and goes over to my house. Guess what? He breaks the key in the lock and can't open the door.
So now there are 4 cats locked inside the house with dwindling supplies of food and water. Long story short by Tuesday, my friend had finally managed to get a flight home, find a locksmith to open the door, and get into the house to save the cats. Poor kitties. The whole time I am helpless and can only get emails at strange times of the day giving status updates.
So the moral of the story I guess is that it's hard to break into your own home. It's much easier to break into somebody else's place because you don't care if you wreak their home. haha.
I have two cats. My friend has two cats. He was going on a short vacation and asked me to watch his cats for a couple days. I told him I was going on a long vacation and needed him to watch my cats. So we struck a deal. He'd leave his cats with my cats and I'd watch the cats for a couple of days and leave food and water out after I left on Friday. He would return home that Sunday and go over to my house to reclaim his cats and check on my cats. Seems simple right?
Sunday comes and his plane is snowed in up north. He can't get home. I'm in Barcelona on vacation and definitely can't get home. We call a third friend and tell him where a copy of the key to my house can be found. He gets the key and goes over to my house. Guess what? He breaks the key in the lock and can't open the door.
So now there are 4 cats locked inside the house with dwindling supplies of food and water. Long story short by Tuesday, my friend had finally managed to get a flight home, find a locksmith to open the door, and get into the house to save the cats. Poor kitties. The whole time I am helpless and can only get emails at strange times of the day giving status updates.
So the moral of the story I guess is that it's hard to break into your own home. It's much easier to break into somebody else's place because you don't care if you wreak their home. haha.
Samantha
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
When I was about... 14 or 15 or so, I was coming home from school and realized I'd forgotten my keys. My parents were out and had naturally assumed I had my keys with me. So the door was locked, and I had no obvious way of entry. Now, this was waaay before people started carrying cellphones casually (Okay, maybe only 3-4 years but still) and I didn't know where my parents had gone for the day. And I was getting mighty hungry, and I knew there was good stuff in the fridgerator.
Being 14 (or possibly 15) I knew I couldn't break open the lock for three reasons. One, locks here are not that simple, and two, they're a lot more sturdy than what you usually see on film. Also, my mom would go ballistic. So I walked around back, and saw that the window to my room was slightly ajar. Thinking this would be easy after all, I grabbed the ladder that hangs on one of our garden walls, propped it up, and climbed to my window. No luck! The window had that little hitch on it that would allow it to open a little bit, but no more than that. And the mechanism to release it was halfway up the window frame - on the inside. No way to reach that, since the opening wasn't bigger than to almost allow my fingertips access, much less my entire arm up to my shoulder.
But I had played Tex games as well. The first thing I did was break off a twig from a tree to try and push the mechanism up and release the window. No luck, the twigs I could use to access the mechanism were too thin, and bent themselves when I applied any pressure.
However, my sister had recently thrown out an old broken radio. And the antenna was metal! I rooted through the trash and found my treasure. But of course, the antenna is telescopic - when I tried pushing with it, it just retracted into itself.
Now, this is the point when I started to become annoyed and hopeless. Besides I'd already had to explain to people who passed by that I lived here, which can be a pretty embarrasing moment for a kid in the middle of his teens.
Then that Tex Murphy-like brainstorming hit me. I bent the antenna carefully at the joints, so it couldn't retract itself. And voila! I flipped off the locking mechanism, opened the window, and crawled in. There was much food and joy.
So yeah, I know what it's like to break into your own home. It somehow takes a lot more work!
-Fred
Being 14 (or possibly 15) I knew I couldn't break open the lock for three reasons. One, locks here are not that simple, and two, they're a lot more sturdy than what you usually see on film. Also, my mom would go ballistic. So I walked around back, and saw that the window to my room was slightly ajar. Thinking this would be easy after all, I grabbed the ladder that hangs on one of our garden walls, propped it up, and climbed to my window. No luck! The window had that little hitch on it that would allow it to open a little bit, but no more than that. And the mechanism to release it was halfway up the window frame - on the inside. No way to reach that, since the opening wasn't bigger than to almost allow my fingertips access, much less my entire arm up to my shoulder.
But I had played Tex games as well. The first thing I did was break off a twig from a tree to try and push the mechanism up and release the window. No luck, the twigs I could use to access the mechanism were too thin, and bent themselves when I applied any pressure.
However, my sister had recently thrown out an old broken radio. And the antenna was metal! I rooted through the trash and found my treasure. But of course, the antenna is telescopic - when I tried pushing with it, it just retracted into itself.
Now, this is the point when I started to become annoyed and hopeless. Besides I'd already had to explain to people who passed by that I lived here, which can be a pretty embarrasing moment for a kid in the middle of his teens.
Then that Tex Murphy-like brainstorming hit me. I bent the antenna carefully at the joints, so it couldn't retract itself. And voila! I flipped off the locking mechanism, opened the window, and crawled in. There was much food and joy.
So yeah, I know what it's like to break into your own home. It somehow takes a lot more work!
-Fred
Pirates, vampires, zombies, ninjas, ghouls, aliens, goblins, monsters, robots, sorcerers, undead, werewolves, demons, mutated dinosaur-cyborgs and those pesky phone salesmen! The shotgun is a one-size-fits-all solution!
Wow; these are great stories. Mine is nowhere near as exciting.
When we were in elementary school my younger brother and I latchkey kids. (Yes, I'm old, that was back when no one really batted an eyelash over latchkey kids.) One day, for whatever reason, I discovered that we hadn't taken the key with us. Both our parents worked and it was several hours until they were going to be home. This was back in the 80s, so cell phones weren't an option. I suppose we could have gone to a neighbor's house, but we were determined to get into our house. We searched for a way in, but to no avail.
Finally, a spark of inspiration hit me. We had an automatic garage door opener. So, the door was unlocked, but you couldn't open it without using the remote or pushing the button inside the garage. However, I discovered that if I pulled up on the door with all my might, it would move up a little bit before the resistance of the automatic garage door opener kicked in. We discovered that my younger brother was small enough that he could squeeze through the crack while I held the door up. Once inside, he could hit the button and open the door so that I could go inside and he could retrive his backpack.
This became such a fun way of getting inside the house that we regularly employed this method even when we had the key.
When we were in elementary school my younger brother and I latchkey kids. (Yes, I'm old, that was back when no one really batted an eyelash over latchkey kids.) One day, for whatever reason, I discovered that we hadn't taken the key with us. Both our parents worked and it was several hours until they were going to be home. This was back in the 80s, so cell phones weren't an option. I suppose we could have gone to a neighbor's house, but we were determined to get into our house. We searched for a way in, but to no avail.
Finally, a spark of inspiration hit me. We had an automatic garage door opener. So, the door was unlocked, but you couldn't open it without using the remote or pushing the button inside the garage. However, I discovered that if I pulled up on the door with all my might, it would move up a little bit before the resistance of the automatic garage door opener kicked in. We discovered that my younger brother was small enough that he could squeeze through the crack while I held the door up. Once inside, he could hit the button and open the door so that I could go inside and he could retrive his backpack.
This became such a fun way of getting inside the house that we regularly employed this method even when we had the key.
I guess the moral of these stories is that it's much easier to break into your house than you might allow yourself to believe. It's kinda scary really. I really hope no one else ever tries to break into my crib, and if they do try, I certainly hope they've never played any Tex Murphy games 
Bests, Rockefeller
Bests, Rockefeller
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do"
"ERROR: Error Code Does Not Indicate An Error"
"ERROR: Error Code Does Not Indicate An Error"
.
I've realised this after locking myself out a few times. This realisation actually led to a similar Tex moment.I guess the moral of these stories is that it's much easier to break into your house than you might allow yourself to believe.
Before leaving the place unatended for about a month I decided to reinforce the backalley entrance which leads straight into the home office. I also installed a separate lock on the inside door , to trap an eventual thief who would manage to get in regardless. I had a hard time with the handle, the door not being a standard size, and managed, like a true idiot, to shut the hallway door, with the keys on the other side. I could no longer access my home office from the inside, and the outside door leading into it had been partly bolted in so that you could get out, but couldn't go in.
A few curses aside, the rest was pretty amusing. Next to the door is a window which is too narrow for anyone to go through, but fairly easy to open once you've removed the screen. I grabbed a measuring tape and attached a round magnet to it (guess where I got the idea!). It was smooth sailing from there. Screen went off, window slid open, and the tape got to the keys. They kept falling off though, and I eventually just removed the magnet and fit the metal tip trhough the keyring to bring them back to papa.
It must've been quite a sight for the nosey neighbours, especially so with the ridiculous grin on my face I carried the whole time.
Part-Time Nomad
That reminds me of my last year of undergraduate school. I had met a girl on campus, and we decided to go to my apartment to hang out for a while.
We arrived at my apartment, and for some reason my key would not open the front door!
She looked at me, and asked: "Are you sure you know where you live?" She was a foreign exchange student, so her conversational English was not perfect.
After reassuring her that yes, I was sure it was my apartment, I did the only thing I could think of. I lifted her up the side of the building to my 2nd floor patio, and had her open the door from the inside!
She asked if this was just a ploy to have an excuse to lift her up... (Which would have been a darn brilliant idea!)...but sadly, no I just wanted access to my apartment.
Funny story, my wife asked if I would ever lift her up like that to open a door, and I told her no, because:
A: The girl from the story weighed maybe 80lbs.
B. This was 10 years and one bad back ago.
C. We need to support our local locksmiths. (It's good for the community!)
-Salsa
We arrived at my apartment, and for some reason my key would not open the front door!
She looked at me, and asked: "Are you sure you know where you live?" She was a foreign exchange student, so her conversational English was not perfect.
After reassuring her that yes, I was sure it was my apartment, I did the only thing I could think of. I lifted her up the side of the building to my 2nd floor patio, and had her open the door from the inside!
She asked if this was just a ploy to have an excuse to lift her up... (Which would have been a darn brilliant idea!)...but sadly, no I just wanted access to my apartment.
Funny story, my wife asked if I would ever lift her up like that to open a door, and I told her no, because:
A: The girl from the story weighed maybe 80lbs.
B. This was 10 years and one bad back ago.
C. We need to support our local locksmiths. (It's good for the community!)
-Salsa
