I Always Wanted to Learn How to Pick Locks

I got an estimate for the locksmith, and walked back to Justin’s. It was a bit outside of his "range," so I headed back to confer. I met up with Ben there, and the two of them were eating breakfast on the steps. After a quick discussion, Ben and I went back to place the call, and to tell the locksmith to head on over.

Shortly after, the guy showed up. It was really fast! He was a rather young guy, very polite and nice, and fairly quick. On looking over all the tools he brought with him, I remarked about how much I wanted to learn how to pick locks as a kid. And it was primarily to have a small, black "pouch" of tools that I could zipper open and shut. That was always such a cool thing that I loved and wanted from the movies.

Halfway through the process, Ben started cracking comments like "Shit, it’s closing in on noon. We’ve only got a few more hours to wire out the money in those offshore accounts." I picked up and starting saying shit like "Jesus, I don’ t want to have my thumbs broken. I really don’t want that." Ben returned with "We gotta hack that system today! Otherwise, we’ll never get another chance."

Ben had me in stitches. In case you missed yesterday’s post, there are a bunch of computers all lined up in Justin’s kitchen. Prior to the hacking jokes, I remarked about how tough it must be to be a locksmith. Once the door’s open, you have to pretend you don’t see the inside of the house. What if it’s messy? What if it smells awful? What if there are a few bricks of cocaine on the coffee table? Your job, as the locksmith, is to just open the door. You get a glimpse of someone else’s life, but you’re not there to assess or to pass judgement. You’re just there to open the door. I’m not sure if the guy saw all our computers lined up, but if he did… he didn’t say anything.

Unfortunately, he had to drill through the lock. But hey… I got more pictures, so it all worked out. :)

Earlier, as we were watching the guy work, Justin asked if he smoked. The guy responded "I don’t smoke cigarettes." Justin, feeling stressed, was having some serious nicotine fits outside his apartment. Once inside (and after lighting a smoke), he gave the locksmith a little "thank you" gift.