The key expedition

"Nothing is easy anymore". That seems to be my mantra these days as the simplest tasks can be so difficult. Today my job was to get extra keys made. Jeff arrives at the end of this week and we will need some spare keys. .....so you go down to Berings and get new keys...... Not exactly. These keys look like they would open a century old coffin - is that why they call them skeleton keys? If so, aptly named.

This is not the first attempt to get keys made. But the guy at the last store assured us that this other place could make us some keys because they had the right type of machine. OK, no problem. Well..... I didn't have any money to pay for these keys and so as Paul was walking out the door this morning after giving me my daily assignment, I asked how I was to pay for these keys. His answer, "I guess you will have to get money out of the ATM (or whatever strange letters are used here). Well... I just got the card on Saturday and when I went to "practice", I forgot my PIN number.... 'Nothing is easy"....

So after looking all over the place for my ATM, XYZ, whatever, card, I finally found it and went to the machine but I forgot to bring a french dictionary to translate the dialog with the money machine. Anyway, I did manage to get both money and my card back so I must have not made any major faux pas. OK... all set to to get the keys.

"Nothing is easy"... I arrived at the designated key place at 1:57 (13:57 over here) but "non" - of course, they are closed until 2:30 (14:30). So I wandered around, walkin the streets and seeing the sights for 37 minutes.

I arrived at the now-open key place and in my best french, asked for copies of the keys. The key to the building would require an ID and an apartment bill of some sort to prove I lived there and then it would take 10 days. OK, that's reasonable, but it would cost 27 euros! So since I had not brought my birth cerificate, baptismal records, high school diploma, etc... that would have to wait. On to the dracula key..... as he was cutting the 3 euro key, he made a noise that indicated to me that there was a problem. He then proceeded to show me that my key was solid and the one he was cutting was hollow. Then he told me to wait right there and then he ran out of the store! Oh dear, what to do?? Well, he came back, all out of breath. He asked if I could come back tomorrow and he will have the right key.

"Nothing is easy anymore."