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Well, as promised, here's the story of how last night went down.
Okay, first of all, I spent all day working on a CS250 assignment that was due this morning at noon (though Ghali has since extended the deadline to Wednesday, but I really don't give a shit as I'm as done with it as I care to be at this point). At around a quarter after 9 pm, I needed a break seriously, so I decided to go across the street to Jack in the Box and get a burger. When I got back home, I realized that I had left my keys inside and that the door was locked. Just. Fucking. Great. That's when things started to go downhill.
Fortunately, I had my cellphone with me. Unfortunately, I didn't know of any numbers to call. So I dialed 411 and asked for the Redmond City police department. They connected me, instead, with the King County Sheriff's department for some reason. I told them I was locked out and they were all like "Well, we can't really do anything unless you want us to come and break down the door. Besides, you want the Redmond City Police, not the King County Sheriff's department." Duh, I know that. That's who I tried to call but they connected me with the Sheriff. Whatever. They connected me to the Redmond Police and I told them what was up. Again, they said they couldn't really do anything, but they would connect me to a locksmith.
They connected me to a wrong number.
After apologizing for having the wrong number and that whole fiasco, I called 411 again and asked for a 24-hour locksmith that serviced the Redmond area. They connected me to a locksmith. I told him what was going on and he said sure, they'd have somebody out there in about 30 minutes or so. Ten minutes later, he called back. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you say you were in Redmond? We only service the Bay area. Here's a number to call to get someone that services Redmond." What in the hell? *sigh*
I called that number and they said they'd send someone out. Yay.
About an hour later, they showed up. Now, not to be racist here or anything, but these two guys looked for all the world like stereotypical members of a gang of Hispanic street thugs or something. The younger of the two didn't look more than maybe 18 or 19, maybe 20 years old. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to think so, but I'll get to that in a bit.
Well, they looked at the screen door (which was also locked) for about two seconds, if that much, before saying, "Sorry, we're going to have to drill it." Um... okay. If you must, I told them. So, they pulled out this big fucking power drill and started drilling the damn keyhole. Keep in mind that it was about 10:30 pm by this time. About twenty minutes later, they got the screen door open, after drilling it and then beating on it with a screwdriver and a rubber mallet. WTF, really. Maybe it's just me, but I was expecting them to have actual locksmithing tools of some sort. The power drill and the screwdrivers and the rubber mallet certainly made for piss-poor lockpicking tools, at any rate. I learned that much, if nothing else.
Well, they looked at the main door for about two seconds before saying, "Sorry, we're going to have to drill this too." Er... whatever. So they started drilling the fucking keyhole on that door too. After another 10 minutes or so, they got that door open. It was about 11:00 pm by this time, and both my screen door and main front door were totally destroyed, with regard to being lockable, or even fully closeable. I went in, and we talked for a bit about what to do about replacing the door knobs. They had a replacement door knob for the main door in their car, but I told them not to worry about the screen door, since they didn't have anything for that at the moment, and, quite frankly, I just wanted them gone by that point.
One of the guys went down to the car to get the door knob, but he came back a few minutes later and there were two cops with him. Apparently, one of the neighbors called the cops on us because they thought some random people were trying to break into my condo. Or maybe they were just complaining about all the noise, or something. Well, either way, I guess that's all right. I'd probably have called the cops too, had it been me, to be honest. I told the officers that I had called the police myself, and the female officer said, in a gruff, no-nonsense, cop-like voice, "Well, you didn't call Redmond!" I looked at her kind of funny and shrugged and said that, well, all I knew was that I had called 411, they had connected me to the King County Sheriff's department and from there they claimed to be connecting me to Redmond, and that someone claiming to be from the Redmond Police answered the phone.
The male officer asked me for some ID, so I showed him my NC state driver's license, since I still haven't gotten around to getting a WA state ID card. He looked at it for a bit, then asked me for actual proof that I was the one who actually lived there. So, I had to go and dig through old bills to find him a bill with my name and this address on it.
Satisfied with all that, the cops finally left. Well, it turned out that when the locksmith guy had gone down to their car to get the replacement door knob, that's when the cops had shown up, as I said. He said that they had been all, like, "Get away from the vehicle!" Apparently, they had thought he'd looked like something of a hoodlum, too. Well, in his surprise and haste to comply with the police officers, he accidentally let the trunk close.
With their keys inside.
So, now, the locksmiths were locked out of their car. It was about another hour and a half before someone finally showed up and opened the trunk for them, since they apparently weren't able to do it themselves. I kind of wondered why they didn't just go down there and drill the fucking trunk open like they had done to my doors, but whatever. At one point, one of them asked me if I had some sort of long, narrow piece of metal handy that they could use. Um, no. I don't keep that kind of thing lying around, not being a locksmith and all. Anyway, after all that, they finally came up and put the replacement door knob on the main door, which took another fifteen minutes or so.
And then the first guy, all apologetic like, starts rattling off how much each part of the service was going to cost. I stopped him and just asked what the bottom line was. Turns out the whole thing cost two-hundred and thirty fucking dollars. I was like well, will you take a credit card? Because I didn't have any money with me. And he said, sure, but it would add an additional twenty dollars to deal with tax, or whatever. But if I wanted, they could give me a ride to 7-11 to pull some money out of the ATM. I said, no, there was a Wells Fargo just down the road, we'd go there.
So, at around 12:40 am, I got into a car with two guys I didn't know and rode down to the ATM and pulled $240, all but $10 of which I gave to them. They gave me the receipt. Here's the breakdown:
"Service" = $55.
"Install New Lock" = $80.
And, here's the good one, "Break In Home" = $95.
Total of $230.
Here are a couple of pictures, just for the hell of it.
First, here's what's left of the old front door knob:
And here's a close-up of the hole they drilled into it:
I'd probably have been just as well off if the cops had just come and broke down the door.
Anyway, rid of them at roughly 1:00 am, I was finally able to turn my attention back to the CS250 assignment, which still wasn't done, obviously. To make the rest of the story short, I was up until 5:30 am working on that bullshit, I got about 4 hours of sleep, and all of today sucked the shit straight out of Satan's asshole because of it. All I have "eaten" today has been a 20-oz Coca-cola, which took me roughly six hours to finish in its entirety as I was mostly just idly sipping on it throughout the day. And even now, I'm not really all that hungry, though I have a killer headache. I'm going to try to fix something in a little while, after I've just sat around and vegetated for a bit more.
Well, that's the story of how I spent 4 hours locked out of my condo and dealing with the aftermath of it.
Okay, first of all, I spent all day working on a CS250 assignment that was due this morning at noon (though Ghali has since extended the deadline to Wednesday, but I really don't give a shit as I'm as done with it as I care to be at this point). At around a quarter after 9 pm, I needed a break seriously, so I decided to go across the street to Jack in the Box and get a burger. When I got back home, I realized that I had left my keys inside and that the door was locked. Just. Fucking. Great. That's when things started to go downhill.
Fortunately, I had my cellphone with me. Unfortunately, I didn't know of any numbers to call. So I dialed 411 and asked for the Redmond City police department. They connected me, instead, with the King County Sheriff's department for some reason. I told them I was locked out and they were all like "Well, we can't really do anything unless you want us to come and break down the door. Besides, you want the Redmond City Police, not the King County Sheriff's department." Duh, I know that. That's who I tried to call but they connected me with the Sheriff. Whatever. They connected me to the Redmond Police and I told them what was up. Again, they said they couldn't really do anything, but they would connect me to a locksmith.
They connected me to a wrong number.
After apologizing for having the wrong number and that whole fiasco, I called 411 again and asked for a 24-hour locksmith that serviced the Redmond area. They connected me to a locksmith. I told him what was going on and he said sure, they'd have somebody out there in about 30 minutes or so. Ten minutes later, he called back. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you say you were in Redmond? We only service the Bay area. Here's a number to call to get someone that services Redmond." What in the hell? *sigh*
I called that number and they said they'd send someone out. Yay.
About an hour later, they showed up. Now, not to be racist here or anything, but these two guys looked for all the world like stereotypical members of a gang of Hispanic street thugs or something. The younger of the two didn't look more than maybe 18 or 19, maybe 20 years old. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to think so, but I'll get to that in a bit.
Well, they looked at the screen door (which was also locked) for about two seconds, if that much, before saying, "Sorry, we're going to have to drill it." Um... okay. If you must, I told them. So, they pulled out this big fucking power drill and started drilling the damn keyhole. Keep in mind that it was about 10:30 pm by this time. About twenty minutes later, they got the screen door open, after drilling it and then beating on it with a screwdriver and a rubber mallet. WTF, really. Maybe it's just me, but I was expecting them to have actual locksmithing tools of some sort. The power drill and the screwdrivers and the rubber mallet certainly made for piss-poor lockpicking tools, at any rate. I learned that much, if nothing else.
Well, they looked at the main door for about two seconds before saying, "Sorry, we're going to have to drill this too." Er... whatever. So they started drilling the fucking keyhole on that door too. After another 10 minutes or so, they got that door open. It was about 11:00 pm by this time, and both my screen door and main front door were totally destroyed, with regard to being lockable, or even fully closeable. I went in, and we talked for a bit about what to do about replacing the door knobs. They had a replacement door knob for the main door in their car, but I told them not to worry about the screen door, since they didn't have anything for that at the moment, and, quite frankly, I just wanted them gone by that point.
One of the guys went down to the car to get the door knob, but he came back a few minutes later and there were two cops with him. Apparently, one of the neighbors called the cops on us because they thought some random people were trying to break into my condo. Or maybe they were just complaining about all the noise, or something. Well, either way, I guess that's all right. I'd probably have called the cops too, had it been me, to be honest. I told the officers that I had called the police myself, and the female officer said, in a gruff, no-nonsense, cop-like voice, "Well, you didn't call Redmond!" I looked at her kind of funny and shrugged and said that, well, all I knew was that I had called 411, they had connected me to the King County Sheriff's department and from there they claimed to be connecting me to Redmond, and that someone claiming to be from the Redmond Police answered the phone.
The male officer asked me for some ID, so I showed him my NC state driver's license, since I still haven't gotten around to getting a WA state ID card. He looked at it for a bit, then asked me for actual proof that I was the one who actually lived there. So, I had to go and dig through old bills to find him a bill with my name and this address on it.
Satisfied with all that, the cops finally left. Well, it turned out that when the locksmith guy had gone down to their car to get the replacement door knob, that's when the cops had shown up, as I said. He said that they had been all, like, "Get away from the vehicle!" Apparently, they had thought he'd looked like something of a hoodlum, too. Well, in his surprise and haste to comply with the police officers, he accidentally let the trunk close.
With their keys inside.
So, now, the locksmiths were locked out of their car. It was about another hour and a half before someone finally showed up and opened the trunk for them, since they apparently weren't able to do it themselves. I kind of wondered why they didn't just go down there and drill the fucking trunk open like they had done to my doors, but whatever. At one point, one of them asked me if I had some sort of long, narrow piece of metal handy that they could use. Um, no. I don't keep that kind of thing lying around, not being a locksmith and all. Anyway, after all that, they finally came up and put the replacement door knob on the main door, which took another fifteen minutes or so.
And then the first guy, all apologetic like, starts rattling off how much each part of the service was going to cost. I stopped him and just asked what the bottom line was. Turns out the whole thing cost two-hundred and thirty fucking dollars. I was like well, will you take a credit card? Because I didn't have any money with me. And he said, sure, but it would add an additional twenty dollars to deal with tax, or whatever. But if I wanted, they could give me a ride to 7-11 to pull some money out of the ATM. I said, no, there was a Wells Fargo just down the road, we'd go there.
So, at around 12:40 am, I got into a car with two guys I didn't know and rode down to the ATM and pulled $240, all but $10 of which I gave to them. They gave me the receipt. Here's the breakdown:
"Service" = $55.
"Install New Lock" = $80.
And, here's the good one, "Break In Home" = $95.
Total of $230.
First, here's what's left of the old front door knob:
And here's a close-up of the hole they drilled into it:
I'd probably have been just as well off if the cops had just come and broke down the door.
Anyway, rid of them at roughly 1:00 am, I was finally able to turn my attention back to the CS250 assignment, which still wasn't done, obviously. To make the rest of the story short, I was up until 5:30 am working on that bullshit, I got about 4 hours of sleep, and all of today sucked the shit straight out of Satan's asshole because of it. All I have "eaten" today has been a 20-oz Coca-cola, which took me roughly six hours to finish in its entirety as I was mostly just idly sipping on it throughout the day. And even now, I'm not really all that hungry, though I have a killer headache. I'm going to try to fix something in a little while, after I've just sat around and vegetated for a bit more.
Well, that's the story of how I spent 4 hours locked out of my condo and dealing with the aftermath of it.
