As Victor Meldrew Would Say ... "I Don't Believe It !!"

A little schadenfreude to lighten your day ...

A couple of hours ago, I popped downstairs to hand over my laundry to the kind chap who I pay to wash it for me.

As I started down the stairs, a horrible realisation occurred to me ... the comforting bulge in my pocket that I had patted down before walking out the door was, in fact, my coin purse, not my keys!

So, I was locked out of my apartment, in shorts and a grotty teeshirt, unshaven, unshowered, without my glasses, and quite seriously hungover, having arrived home at 0230 this morning, after a night on the tiles celebrating a friend's birthday :-(.

What's worse, my mobile was also on the other side of the door, which meant I had no access to any of my friends' phone numbers ... nor their precise addresses, which would have, at least, enabled me to get the numbers from directory assistance.

I was able to remember my dear friend Susan's number, simply because it hasn't changed in years. Unfortunately, she was on her way out for the afternoon.

Dee suggested I could call a locksmith, which I decided was a better plan than trying to find someone's place to doss at until tomorrow, when I could get a spare key from the real estate agent.

A straightforward plan one would think ...

First, I discovered that public phone boxes no longer seem to accept coins (at least, not the couple I tried); you need a phone card. It took me three shops before I found one that sold such a thing.

I then discovered that directory assistance can't help you unless you have an actual name they can look up. The friendly operator did tell me I could ring a different number to get to Yellow Pages. However, it turns out that you can't actually call that number from a Telstra phone box!

So, I popped into the local football club. Unbelievably, the public phones there were denied access to the Yellow Pages number, too.

There was an ancient White Pages book there, so I took a punt and tried looking up things like "... Locksmiths" for a couple of suburbs near me, to no avail. I tried "Emergencey Locksmiths" ... no luck there, either. Fortunately, I eventually tried the bleeding obvious "Locksmiths ..." and was finally rewarded with a number I could call.

I spent another hour outside in the heat, waiting for the locksmith to arrive. He took one look at the lock and said "Shit!". Apparently, my lock is designed to be pick proof. He had a go at it, but with absolutely no luck.

Eventually, he went for the tried and proven method of sliding something down between the door and the frame. It took quite a long time and he made an incredible racket doing it (which is somewhat comforting, I guess), but eventually got the damned thing open.

So, three hours and $120 later, I am, once more, ensconced in my blog-posting chair.

Tomorrow, my top priority will be having some spare keys cut and dropping them off with a couple of friends!

Oh, and for those of you out there in the blogosphere who have never met me in person, that is, indeed, a true depiction of my physique :-).