So I got off work at 1 a.m. and headed home. Having recently changed my mortice lock, I had decided right before work that I should gather up all of my house keys and make sure I had a couple of complete extra sets. I went to the local locksmith/keymaker on 22nd Street (down the street from Rosanne Cash's house) and had him make up two sets. When I got home I tried the new mailbox keys (works!), the downstairs frontdoor key (works) and the deadbolt key (works). I got inside to say hi to Larry and set everything down, then turned around to try the mortise lock (the one on the doorknob). While you might say I should have "tested" it with the door open, the door does not lock WITHOUT a key, so I had no hesitation in playing "I'm home from work opening the door" in my hallway. Slid the key in, turned to lock it (works!). Turned the key the other direction to unlock it -- wait, what's going on here? Low and behold, the key does not work -- and now I'm locked out of my apartment with not a single spare key anywhere in the fair city. (Long story, but I wound up with all of my originals and spares, which is what spurred me to have more sets out there "in case of emergency," including leaving a set in my desk drawer at work, a building that is open 24 hours a day.)
After waking up my 67-year-old gay neighbor (in his not-so-tighty-whities) and nearly breaking my neck climbing out his window onto the fire escape -- only to realize my connecting window isn't the one that I have cracked open but is actually the one with a locked gate on it (glad I didn't figure this out during a fire). After leaving a message with the place that made the bogus key I tried another locksmith, who told me it would be more than $200 to come out and open my door. (That's about what I paid during regular business hours when I had a guy come and change my doorknob/lock, so I decided my only hope of not getting hosed was with the place that essentially caused the whole mishap). Finally, the bogus keymaker called me back and when I calmly tried to tell him that he needed to send someone over to rectify the problem, he promptly hung up on me. I phoned him back and he said he "got disconnected" and eventually agreed to send someone. I had my doubts that he would (I figured he'd just put me off so I'd stop calling and waking him up), but eventually a nice guy came and was able to jar the lock open. He was able to see that the key was faulty -- it broke in half -- and then tried to get me to cough up $65 for coming "after hours." I told him he could call the police if he wanted, but there was no way I was giving him a penny for the trouble his company had caused me and I shut the door (it's now 3:31 a.m.). I'm expecting to either be killed by the Russian mafia tomorrow or to wind up on "Judge Judy," whichever comes first.
P.S. I guess yesterday wasn't my day for goods and services. At 1:10 p.m. Tuesday afternoon I arrived at my dentist's office for my 1:15 cleaning only to watch a woman who got there at 1:25 go immediately in and then be told they were running late because of "an emergency" (an emergency cleaning?). When 1:40 rolled around I finally got up and said I couldn't wait any longer and they rescheduled me for today. No respect for other people's time. Are these people for real?
3 comments:
poor thing....i know that must have been awful, just awful
OMG I can't imagine, and all I can think as I'm reading it is "living in Manhattan--so you don't have to." Thanks for sharing, and hope you have time to check my new blog. You have inspired me to give it a whirl! Thanks!
Isn't is something how Lucy has become such a part of our consciousness that one thinks of her at a time like that?
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