The Maddog Rag

One of the more frustrating days I’ve had in a long time occurred on a very hot day in May of this year.  I locked myself out of my home.  Yes, I am an idiot, and I paid a high price for this mistake.

Being outside without a hat and suitable refuge from the sun, I severely (and literally) burned layers of skin off the top of my skull.  My skin up there is still pealing off to this day.  My reason for going out was to get something I forgot in the car, so I didn’t bother to grab my hat.

I googled for a locksmith near by and the first one that popped up claimed to have a presence in town so I called them up.  The first error on my part.  It was lie #1, they were located 3 towns away, and promised a “tech” would be there within 30 to 45 minutes.  This was lie #2, as it took 2 and a half hours.

When the “tech” did arrive, he ran up to the door and started to force feed two heavy duty balloons between the door and the door jamb, above and below the locks, and then blew them up with a hand pump until the door popped open.  This process took no more than a minute.

I was then presented with an invoice demanding a credit card and a fee of $196.00.  I automatically spurted out “You got to be fucking kidding me!” to which he sternly replied “that’s the fee”.

So I paid him.  He was about 2 feet taller than me, they wouldn’t have found my body for months.  I always need these type of lessons in life to remind me that there is an overstock of thieves and miscreants out there ready to take you for everything they can get.

Least I forget, after he had driven off I took a look at the space between the door and the door jamb and was alarmed to see that his air bags had pushed the door jamb further away from the door.  This made the locks much less prepared to survive a “kick in”.