locked up

this is just a snapshot of my day today. 

locks. 

lots of them. 

deadbolts and keyed entries and doorknobs, oh my!

my relator told me my first 'home improvement' project should be switching my locks- 'who knows what neighbors and other people have keys to this house?' she said. i had never thought of that but when she said it,  my mind wouldn't stop wandering... maybe the neighbors have keys? maybe they made keys for someone else that i don't know and he has keys and knows it's empty? what if someone lives in here at night and doesn't let anyone know? 

solution to my irrational mind maze? new locks, stat. 

at walmart, they had a set: two deadbolts and two knobs, for pretty cheap. a brand i trusted, too- brinks. brinks is a brand i know for the security alarms (hence myla's middle name 'brinks') so i was happy to fork out my cash for the four-pack of locks. 

i tried to install them quickly, on friday night. i got the back deadbolt on no problem! 'this whole house thing is easy, i like it! who needs boys anyway?'. the knob, though, was another story... i couldn't get it to shut right, i couldn't get it flush with the door jamb, and i don't think i could even screw the screws in right. so i left that for the next day, thinking it was just a product of my over-excitemed and under-slept self. 

today i went back, ready to conquer the locks, and then some cleaning. a few hours here and then i'll be home to do a nice, relaxing sunday evening... 

or so i thought. 

i cleaned and cleaned- bleached the bathroom, took the stove apart and cleaned out metal tongs, cigarette butts, burnt crumbs and old pennies and beer caps from underneath the oven drawer. i washed the counters and scrubbed the bathtub and replaced some goldringed silver hardware with my trusty screwdriver. then i replaced the locks. 

i checked the deadbolt in the back again: good! i re-screwed the knob and got it working: good! i moved onto the front dead bolt, and by this time was a pro, it only took a me a few minutes, and on it went! 

i locked up and got ready to leave; good timing since it was starting to thunder and lightning. as i was leaving, i locked the backdoor knob and turned around to test it with the keys- the set i had bought promised me that all four keys would open all four locks, and the four keys definitely opened the deadbolt in the back, so i was pretty sure i was money. 

wrong. 

the backdoor deadbolt unlocked easily with the key. the doorknob, not so much. no turn, no give. locked. i ran to the front with the keys, thinking maybe i didn't install the knob right- maybe it's a user error- i'll just go unlock the front deadbolt and be in. easy! 

wrong again. 

front deadbolt didn't turn, didn't move, didn't waver under the turn of key 1. or key 2. or key 3. or (you guessed it) key 4. 

stuck. outside. in the rain. at my new house. where no one except stranger neighbors and weirdo freaks had (or so i imagined) spare keys to the locks i had already changed. i had all four keys, so asking someone to just make a copy of a key wouldn't work. 

i had to break in. i found ONE window unlocked (praisetheLordhallelujuah): the kitchen window, which sits on the north-facing side of the corner property, the side of the house exposed to the busy street. the house sits atop a small embankment (so as to help withdrainage) so i was within major eyesight of any one of the midafternoon drivers. 

and the kitchen window was shoulder height. 

i popped off the screen, hiked up my pants and waited for a break in traffic. i curled my fingers under the sill inside and hoisted myself up and over, inches at a time, into the kitchen sink. i know that my jeans, being my lazy, 4 sizes too big pair, were falling off, so i can only imagine how it looked to see a half-clothed denim butt hanging out the kitchen window, my little legs and flipflopped feet waving around in the air. 

once in the kitchen sink, i dusted myself off, went to find my screwdriver and set back to work. 

i uninstalled all the locks, trying each key 138 times for each lock, attached to the door and then unattached to the door. still nothing. all this confirmed for me was that it wasn't a user error, it was a Brinks error. which was, to be honest, a pain in the butt, because that meant i had to uninstall all the locks, match up all corresponding hardware (the long screw, the short screw, the new screw, the old screw, the shiny one, the dark one), and return this set of junk, go get new locks and still install them. 

all today. 

boooooooo. 

highlights of the shenanigans: on the drive to the closest walmart, i found a great dogpark on the way (within walking distance of my house), got a new toilet seat, some other bathroom hooks and even a tub stopper when i returned my locks. this walmart didn't have the sets i had purchased, so i had to go next door to the depot to get what i really needed (since my house was sitting with literally no doorknobs or locks on it at all). 

two and a half hours later, my new locks were successfully installed (and tested!) and ready to go. i got home a little later than i wanted, but had the satisfaction of knowing my house has four keys: two for me, two for aly. the end. 

PS. if you ever need a locksmith, let me know. i may know a good one.