I was put on a temporary Seaweed Watch today. It doesn't happen often that I get frustrated enough to get mad enough to be put on Seaweed Watch but it happens. SuperK is the arbiter of The Seaweed Watch.
We spent a pleasant morning drinking cafe con leches in a neighborhood bakery and came home to gird up our loins for another day of going to museums and tourist sites with impossibly long lines that we wouldn't actually get to see but instead would do something else that we inevitably would enjoy more. I locked up our place, noticed that I had forgotten my sunglasses, and went back upstairs to collect them. The key spun smoothly in the lock, making all kinds of reassuring clicks and thunks, but not actually opening the . . . you know . . . door. This is the main function of the key as I understand it - releasing the locking mechanism that prevents the door from being opened by just anyone. It would make no sense if someone with no key could open your door. You might as well not have a door at all. You might as well sleep in the street.
Being mechanically inclined I spent some time repeating this locking and unlocking process - with no variation whatsoever on the original unsuccessful attempt - without getting the door to open. I think I believe that if I keep doing the same thing over and over that I'll get different results. I have some experience with this type of circular logic semantics. It didn't compute in my very mechanical mind that the door wouldn't unlock - I had worked the unlocking function successfully not 20 minutes earlier. I could see no reason that it wouldn't continue to work. Things are not supposed to break and inconvenience me. I tried one more time or maybe three more times. It's possible that I pushed on the still locked door and then banged on. I'm not saying.
I went to the small shop nearby owned by the father of our temporary landlord. He wasn't there. The woman at the shop didn't speak any English and I didn't know the Spanish phrase for "my fucking door won't fucking open." After a series of phone calls with whom I assumed was the father of the landlord - with a lot of pantomiming of "yes, I know how a key works, I used the key today, I've been in and out of the fucking apartment 50 times already " - I gleaned that he would arrive by motorcar to rectify the situation in something less than an hour. The exact amount of time required remained a mystery.
Now Spanish time is not a time I'm familiar with. There's a great deal of slop in the numbers, quaint when you're waiting for your 5th cafe con leche, less so when you're waiting for someone to let you in your fucking apartment. Papa eventually shows up, tries the lock once, shrugs his shoulders in an "Eh, it's broken" kind of gesture, and informs me that someone can fix the lock in about two hours.
I hear this: "Go and enjoy yourself. You don't need to be here. I'll handle it."
This is not what he said.
We return home in three hours to a still inoperable lock. Once again we visit papa's store and he takes us to some kind of metal working shop. A guy there loads up some files and screwdrivers - not locksmith looking things - and we all bundle off purposefully to the Fortress of Solitude. I can see immediately that this guy has approximately no experience with locks. He peers at the lock and shines a flashlight in the lock and works the key in approximately the same fashion that I did fifty times or so - all very unlocksmith-like - and then shrugs his shoulders as if to say "Eh, I can't get it open."
I hear Papa say this: "We're calling an expert. He will arrive in approximately 20 minutes by motor scooter." He may have said this, approximately.
I'm beginning to stew. I was miffed that papa waited for us to return before starting the sleuthing process and miffed that he got some gorilla from a metal working shop to look at the lock. Unbeknownst to me Seaweed Watch had started.
We wait for a bit in a spare room in the apartment building before I head back to papa's shop. His assistant says what I hear as: "He left." This is what she said, too.
Back in the spare room I'm beginning to boil. After a few more minutes I stand up and proclaim the following, and this is a direct translation: "I'm going to go back and stand in the shop." I was beginning to worry that this guy was going to go home and leave us hanging. What was my recourse? I didn't have a recourse. I rented an apartment from a guy.
SuperK says: "Don't make this worse."
Intuitively I knew I would get back into the apartment eventually but it wasn't happening to my liking. Because it wasn't handled very efficiently the whole enterprise fell into the "Justified Annoyance" category, a very bad category indeed.
Papa shows up with an honest-to-god locksmith who's in the apartment in 2 minutes and has repaired the lock in 5 more. I hugged the locksmith.
Badda bing badda bang.
Being mechanically inclined I spent some time repeating this locking and unlocking process - with no variation whatsoever on the original unsuccessful attempt - without getting the door to open. I think I believe that if I keep doing the same thing over and over that I'll get different results. I have some experience with this type of circular logic semantics. It didn't compute in my very mechanical mind that the door wouldn't unlock - I had worked the unlocking function successfully not 20 minutes earlier. I could see no reason that it wouldn't continue to work. Things are not supposed to break and inconvenience me. I tried one more time or maybe three more times. It's possible that I pushed on the still locked door and then banged on. I'm not saying.
I went to the small shop nearby owned by the father of our temporary landlord. He wasn't there. The woman at the shop didn't speak any English and I didn't know the Spanish phrase for "my fucking door won't fucking open." After a series of phone calls with whom I assumed was the father of the landlord - with a lot of pantomiming of "yes, I know how a key works, I used the key today, I've been in and out of the fucking apartment 50 times already " - I gleaned that he would arrive by motorcar to rectify the situation in something less than an hour. The exact amount of time required remained a mystery.
Now Spanish time is not a time I'm familiar with. There's a great deal of slop in the numbers, quaint when you're waiting for your 5th cafe con leche, less so when you're waiting for someone to let you in your fucking apartment. Papa eventually shows up, tries the lock once, shrugs his shoulders in an "Eh, it's broken" kind of gesture, and informs me that someone can fix the lock in about two hours.
I hear this: "Go and enjoy yourself. You don't need to be here. I'll handle it."
This is not what he said.
We return home in three hours to a still inoperable lock. Once again we visit papa's store and he takes us to some kind of metal working shop. A guy there loads up some files and screwdrivers - not locksmith looking things - and we all bundle off purposefully to the Fortress of Solitude. I can see immediately that this guy has approximately no experience with locks. He peers at the lock and shines a flashlight in the lock and works the key in approximately the same fashion that I did fifty times or so - all very unlocksmith-like - and then shrugs his shoulders as if to say "Eh, I can't get it open."
I hear Papa say this: "We're calling an expert. He will arrive in approximately 20 minutes by motor scooter." He may have said this, approximately.
I'm beginning to stew. I was miffed that papa waited for us to return before starting the sleuthing process and miffed that he got some gorilla from a metal working shop to look at the lock. Unbeknownst to me Seaweed Watch had started.
We wait for a bit in a spare room in the apartment building before I head back to papa's shop. His assistant says what I hear as: "He left." This is what she said, too.
Back in the spare room I'm beginning to boil. After a few more minutes I stand up and proclaim the following, and this is a direct translation: "I'm going to go back and stand in the shop." I was beginning to worry that this guy was going to go home and leave us hanging. What was my recourse? I didn't have a recourse. I rented an apartment from a guy.
SuperK says: "Don't make this worse."
Intuitively I knew I would get back into the apartment eventually but it wasn't happening to my liking. Because it wasn't handled very efficiently the whole enterprise fell into the "Justified Annoyance" category, a very bad category indeed.
Papa shows up with an honest-to-god locksmith who's in the apartment in 2 minutes and has repaired the lock in 5 more. I hugged the locksmith.
Badda bing badda bang.
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