Keys, Doors and other stuff

To get duplicate keys made for our doors has not been easy. It took 2 trips to the key shop to find the shop open – seems they close during the middle of the day. After paying about 250 euros to get 8 or 9 keys made (can’t remember that far back), one particular key had to be special ordered after I showed all known forms of identification. It was supposed to take 10 days. Jeff and I went back last week to get the keys. Took 2 trips again…..

We purposely waited until after 2:30 pm to go so that they would be open. Well, a sign on the door said that in this particular week, their hours were from 9 am to 11 am. Geez.

So…. I went back in the given time period to pick up my special-order keys. But guess what… he didn’t have the keys! He got on the phone and called somebody and said some things in French then hung up and told me to come back. I didn’t quite understand WHEN he said to come back, but anyway, I will have to go back again.

We met some Americans a few weeks ago and the topic of keys came up. What they did was Fed-Ex their keys to friends in the U.S., have duplicate keys made back home, then the friends Fed-Exed the keys back to them here. It was cheaper and faster. Why didn’t we think of that?????

The implications of having only one key are many. Losing that key can cause some complications. Paul has been so careful about checking to make sure that he has the full set of keys before closing the door each time he leaves the apartment. It would be painful if we got locked out. Just how painful? Well we got a chance to feel the pain the other night. But not because we lost our keys or locked them inside.

I keep a key in the lock on the inside of the door, because the lock works kind of like a deadbolt. You have to lock it from the inside to be secure. We were leaving the apartment to go do some shopping and go out to eat. We checked, as always, to make sure we had the keys before we closed the door, but the security key was left in the lock inside the door. After we left, Paul had forgotten to bring something along on the trip, and decided to go back into the apartment to retrieve the forgotten item. But the key would not work! His didn’t work, mine didn’t work. A ball-point pen didn’t work. Nothing would open the door. We had no cell phone but even if we had one, who would we call? There is no concierge nor building person on site. It was late in the day and stores were closing and we didn’t even know where we could find a pay phone.

After getting over the initial feeling of panic, we decided to walk to find a pay-phone and call a locksmith (not that we knew any locksmith to call). As we were going down the street, we spotted a business that does apartment leasing. Paul told me to run over there and ask if they could recommend a locksmith. I did and the man inside was SO NICE! He called the locksmith for us and told us to go stand in front of the apartment and wait about 20 minutes. So we did… and the locksmith showed up 20 minutes later. How he opened the door was pretty interesting. He kind-of used the old credit card trick. No locksmithing skill or tools were used. Just good old fashioned lock picking. He took a sheet of thick plastic, about the size and thickness of a half-sheet of paper. He placed it under the latch between the door and the frame. He then began to shake the door violently and move the plastic up and down until it released the latch. It made such a racket that I thought the neighbors would all come running out to see what was going on. Anyway, 75 euros later, we were in the apartment. And by the way…. when he saw the key in the latch on the inside of the door, he said “jamais, jamais” leave the key in the keyhole.

jamais Adverb (a) (in negative) never, not ever, (in emphatic position) never ever; (Infml) ~ ~ never ever (neutral);