Sunday, April 05, 2015

Please Tell Me This is Over




You know how they say that things come in threes?  I am beginning to think they come in 33s.  Our nightmare began when we left for Florida to escape winter last month.  On the way out the door Hubby noticed that the keys to our other car were hanging on the key rack just inside the garage door.  He thought it would be prudent to move these elsewhere in case someone did break into the house.  The keys sitting there would give them easy access to stealing the car.  I was busy loading stuff into the other car and said "ok" casually over my shoulder on the way out the door.

Upon our return almost three weeks later, Hubby comes up to me and asks where he hid the keys!  I explained that I did not even see which room he went back into as I was loading the car.  Well, it is now almost a month later and while we have torn the house apart we have not found this second set of keys which will take $500 to replace!

The week after our return hubby's car starts acting up in that it refuses to lock.  The lock on this car was an add-on many years ago when we lived in the apartment and the landlord's son tried to break into the car destroying the lock.  We got a brand new system that worked (somewhat) for years.  Last year we replaced both keys to the tune of several hundred dollars, and now, this year, once again we had a key problem.  Hubby took the car up to a company that fixes locks in cars and they had to replace the entire system (computer chip and all) and we now have two NEW keys for that car!  I would tell you how much it cost,but hubby won't tell me!

Yesterday, after driving hubby to the town up north to pick up his newly re-configured car, I came home and went to unlock the garage door to the house  It is a bit tricky and you have to remember to always turn it to the left and NEVER to the right or the key sticks and you can neither unlock nor get your get back out.  Well, I was hungry, had to go to the bathroom, etc. and completely turned the key the wrong way and was stuck!

We have a hidden key around the back of the house at the patio door and I hurriedly headed in that direction down the hill toward the river side of the house and pulled the key out of its hiding place and put it into the french door lock and TA DA...it also stuck and would not turn or unlock the patio door, no matter how much I jigged or jagged!  I was seriously thinking of going to pee in the trees but walked once more back up to the garage and fiddled with that door again and luckily it broke free of its stasis and I got it unlocked and went inside!

Is there some universal key god that is punishing me for some sin I have committed this year?  And what can I do to repent and end this expensive nightmare?  You may remember in a prior post that I have been trying to hire someone to fix the front door latch as well since the front door fails to close correctly and therefore makes it hard to turn the deadbolt with that key.  There must be some bad spell about keeping things in or keeping them out that has been cast my way.

(Oh, I almost left out that they lost hubby's luggage (over 4 days and waiting) on his trip to the tiny island school in the Caribbean last week where there were NO stores and where he had only one pair of underwear.  I also almost forgot to throw into this mess that the breaker outlet failed in the basement for on our chest freezer resulting in the loss of hundreds of dollars of food yesterday!  Good luck has to be around the corner....right?)


21 comments:

  1. Your life seems to be a little off key at the moment.

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  2. That is a string of bad luck that just has to go away soon!

    The lock to our front door, our only point of entry was sticking so bad we thought the key would snap. WD40 and other attempts to free it up did no good. The issue resolved itself when the weather warmed up.

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  3. When it rains, it pours, but I'm afraid that for you it's a tsunami.
    We put new door knobs on our front door that, 1- isn't a knob but instead is a horizontal handle which is much easier to turn
    and
    2 - is opened with a push button pad (the code of which we can change easily if we just get out the directions) so no key. Of course as time goes by and we can't remember the code that will be another issue.

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  4. oh my! what an ordeal! here's hoping your luck changes - and quickly!

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  5. This does seem to reflect a streak of bad luck. But like all things this too shall pass. Take care.

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  6. Good grief!
    Well, Easter is a day for renewal and new life. The moon was full last night, so a new cycle is starting.
    So maybe it's time for things to get better?

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  7. Our vacation trailer is like that with you can't turn it the wrong way. Our first trip out with it, we stopped in medford to deliver some lamb and I turned it the wrong way... It seized up and that was that. Finally my husband climbed into the storage book which lets you get into the interior and from there he could unlock it. The mistake led to an extra hour or more on our trip as we tried to figure out how to get in. I had to wait outside the trailer while he delivered the lamb as we didn't want to leave it without protection since who knew if it would suddenly unlock. But I will say-- I never forgot again

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  8. I can see why you're keyed up about these misfortunes! When we were moving out of the Denver house, Bob took a pile of his clothes to Goodwill. Later, we couldn't find his set of our van keys. Like you, we searched everywhere in the house, and he went back to Goodwill asking that they be alert for a set of keys in a pocket. No luck. Since the replacement would cost over $500, we're getting along with one set. (I'm hoping we don't misplace it!)

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  9. Holy cow! surely things will start getting better. don't know if it will help you but sometimes when locks get sticky and don't want to turn, my husband will pray powdered graphite into the lock to help lubricate it.

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  10. Sounds like a nightmare. Hope you both calm down and work out a way of dealing with this in the future.

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  11. All right. Confess. What was it you did in a previous life that you are being punished for here?
    Me, I hate keys. Hate hate hate. In the kitchen I have a big set of hooks that hold all the keys. No key is ever anywhere else but there unless it's in use, and it always goes right back to its proper spot.
    I learned this principle of organization from the Swiss. Have only one date calendar. Have only one telephone and address book, etc. Though I wish I had had a better backup for these when I lost my bag in Cuba!

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  12. Ugh and double ugh! Yes, i hope it's over for quite a while, once this round of repairs is finished.

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  13. arghhhh! The keys will turn up within 48 hours of paying $500 to replace them. As for everything else, I'm not sure.

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  14. Holy Camolie! Hopefully things will get better soon. We have a button punch on our car that I use to get in and out... love it! You don't have to use a key to lock or unlock the door, but you do have to remember the code...

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  15. Yikes, I am sorry I read this because i don't even want to know that all these things can go wrong. Hope the tide turns soon.

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  16. The thing about locks is that you've got to have the keys to make them work. However, locks are still good basic protection for the stuff we want protected and for the ones we'd rather keep to ourselves. That isn't a trivial matter, so the locks should be of the highest efficacy and craftsmanship all the time. Thanks for sharing that! All the best!

    Joyce Roberson @ LockedOut London

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  17. Wow. That is madness! What is going on? I certainly hope you are done with the string of bad luck.

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  18. OMGosh....lots worse than you mentioned on Facebook. That's enough. It's over. What a true mess with golumns sitting around the corner and trolls just waiting for your next move.

    Did you next-day-air him new underwear?

    Life is going to do nothing but get better now.

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  19. It seems to me that the minute we decide on a specific purpose for our money, the gremlins take that as an invitation to find other things on which it must be spent. I've had a similar succession of unexpected expenses lately, starting when I decided to do some serious saving. But it can't last forever. Can it???

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  20. I'm having similar lock luck lately- must be the weather. Get some "Liquid Wrench / WD 40"spray stuff for the locks. Or maybe "Lock Thaw" if they are frozen. Way cheaper than new locks.
    Yep, I love my hidden keys!

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  21. You're not alone. They key gods have frowned on me time and time again. It's amazing that these all-important little tools are just so little. Then again, we have to have them. If only it were like a phone and you could just give it a call. It’s not wise to have a universal key like what’re asking for, though.

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Take your time...take a deep breath...then hit me with your best shot.