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genderjumperOur doors stick. Possibly foundation issues, possibly the house showing its age. I'm the only one who can easily open the front or back door, really.
I used to tighten the screws in the front door when my grandfather was still alive: I wondered if his unsteadhy hand contributed to the loosening.
We never use keys, we come in through the garage. We use the garage door opener. The garage door lost a spring last week and I had both replaced for under $200.
I've twice broken into the back door with a credit card when we had a power outage, though not recently.
When NP moved in, she helped me sort all the junk drawers and found keys to all the doors. They all used the same key. She put one on a thylacine keychain and we stored it somewhere safe.
I used to collect keychains as a teen. I probably had over 20 feet accumulated, and they are probably still sitting in a box in the garage, nigh untouched since I moved here just over twenty years ago.
We cannot find the thylacine key. We found another key that doesn't work, probably her dad's house but we're not sure.
We never use keys over there, either. We just know the code for the garage keypad. The handwriting dates the key to three years ago, but it looks like my grandfather's handwriting. He's been gone nine years now. Did they have similar handwriting?
We have prepared two separate birdsitters to keep the birds on their schedule while we're away. They need keys.
There was a time when we would have just left the back door unlocked, but I don't think that will fly now.
Patio doorknobs/deadbolts are kept in the door section, not the doorknob section. A brass replacement cost $85.
Good thing I kept my receipt.
It took me over an hour to gather the best tools and disassemble the old knob...
So that's what the star-shaped screwdriver gets used for.
...and only a few minutes to ascertain that the holes are cut differently and thus not compatible.
Not that it stopped me from contemplating it from multiple angles: what if I use a drill? What if I put it in upside down?
I ask NP what she prefer I do tonight: put the old one back in or cover the hole?
The screendoor is dusty as fuck.
She has been wanting to call a locksmith since we couldn't immediately locate the thylacine key and I kept asking for more time: let me look around some more. Let me try to change the knob. First store didn't have it, let me try again.
If I'd bought the knob for the front door, it would have been more likely to work and far less expensive.
I'm not actually sure the locksmith will be able to do much about it. If this knob kit is proprietary, it may only come with a door, or have been discontinued decades ago.
I was like five when my grandparents installed these fake french doors. They seemed so classy at the time!!!
What's really at issue is the deadbolt sticks and this kit... didn't come with new inner workings, just the knob and the lock.
They even matched our unmistakable orange walls.
There's no guarantee that a locksmith won't have the same challenges I'm having: outdated templates and exclusively modern replacements. I don't even know if they sold one (mismatched though it might have been) that included inner workings.
$85 for no inner workings feels like a rip-off.
With the original deadbolt back in and maybe the handle, we don't really have any holes to fill.
Remember that time I used a broken car fob for several years, spent $200 to get it replaced, then barely had it two years before the hybrid system melted and I had it scrapped?
I gather all of the pieces of two knobs and look around the house for storage that helps keep them distinct.
I've thrown away so many good boxes the past month, but box-hoarding is a lifelong struggle I suppose and no one knew we'd have doorknob-sized problems.
A shopping bag for the new one, an old towel for the old one. The receipt is still in the car.
Crap, I've tracked grease on the carpet where I was working. I told myself to put down a towel but didn't.
I express fear and frustration. "If I'd known this wouldn't work, I would've just put WD-40 on the doorknob."
"That's bad for the birds."
"I know, that's why I haven't done it before."
"I use olive oil on some of the hinges around here."
"We have olive oil..."
I cannot shake a feeling of familiarity throughout these discoveries... not befuddling déjà vu but an actual resonance with the past. Have I learned most or all of this before?
"I can't stop trying to think of a workaround."
"Are you perseverating?"
"Well, I am stuck on the sunken cost..."
"And isn't that a fallacy?"
She has already scheduled the locksmith.
"I'm scared. I'm scared that I still can't tell what I can do and what I can't."
"I know it's frustrating, but we have the money."
I'll never get that time back.
I used to tighten the screws in the front door when my grandfather was still alive: I wondered if his unsteadhy hand contributed to the loosening.
We never use keys, we come in through the garage. We use the garage door opener. The garage door lost a spring last week and I had both replaced for under $200.
I've twice broken into the back door with a credit card when we had a power outage, though not recently.
When NP moved in, she helped me sort all the junk drawers and found keys to all the doors. They all used the same key. She put one on a thylacine keychain and we stored it somewhere safe.
I used to collect keychains as a teen. I probably had over 20 feet accumulated, and they are probably still sitting in a box in the garage, nigh untouched since I moved here just over twenty years ago.
We cannot find the thylacine key. We found another key that doesn't work, probably her dad's house but we're not sure.
We never use keys over there, either. We just know the code for the garage keypad. The handwriting dates the key to three years ago, but it looks like my grandfather's handwriting. He's been gone nine years now. Did they have similar handwriting?
We have prepared two separate birdsitters to keep the birds on their schedule while we're away. They need keys.
There was a time when we would have just left the back door unlocked, but I don't think that will fly now.
Patio doorknobs/deadbolts are kept in the door section, not the doorknob section. A brass replacement cost $85.
Good thing I kept my receipt.
It took me over an hour to gather the best tools and disassemble the old knob...
So that's what the star-shaped screwdriver gets used for.
...and only a few minutes to ascertain that the holes are cut differently and thus not compatible.
Not that it stopped me from contemplating it from multiple angles: what if I use a drill? What if I put it in upside down?
I ask NP what she prefer I do tonight: put the old one back in or cover the hole?
The screendoor is dusty as fuck.
She has been wanting to call a locksmith since we couldn't immediately locate the thylacine key and I kept asking for more time: let me look around some more. Let me try to change the knob. First store didn't have it, let me try again.
If I'd bought the knob for the front door, it would have been more likely to work and far less expensive.
I'm not actually sure the locksmith will be able to do much about it. If this knob kit is proprietary, it may only come with a door, or have been discontinued decades ago.
I was like five when my grandparents installed these fake french doors. They seemed so classy at the time!!!
What's really at issue is the deadbolt sticks and this kit... didn't come with new inner workings, just the knob and the lock.
They even matched our unmistakable orange walls.
There's no guarantee that a locksmith won't have the same challenges I'm having: outdated templates and exclusively modern replacements. I don't even know if they sold one (mismatched though it might have been) that included inner workings.
$85 for no inner workings feels like a rip-off.
With the original deadbolt back in and maybe the handle, we don't really have any holes to fill.
Remember that time I used a broken car fob for several years, spent $200 to get it replaced, then barely had it two years before the hybrid system melted and I had it scrapped?
I gather all of the pieces of two knobs and look around the house for storage that helps keep them distinct.
I've thrown away so many good boxes the past month, but box-hoarding is a lifelong struggle I suppose and no one knew we'd have doorknob-sized problems.
A shopping bag for the new one, an old towel for the old one. The receipt is still in the car.
Crap, I've tracked grease on the carpet where I was working. I told myself to put down a towel but didn't.
I express fear and frustration. "If I'd known this wouldn't work, I would've just put WD-40 on the doorknob."
"That's bad for the birds."
"I know, that's why I haven't done it before."
"I use olive oil on some of the hinges around here."
"We have olive oil..."
I cannot shake a feeling of familiarity throughout these discoveries... not befuddling déjà vu but an actual resonance with the past. Have I learned most or all of this before?
"I can't stop trying to think of a workaround."
"Are you perseverating?"
"Well, I am stuck on the sunken cost..."
"And isn't that a fallacy?"
She has already scheduled the locksmith.
"I'm scared. I'm scared that I still can't tell what I can do and what I can't."
"I know it's frustrating, but we have the money."
I'll never get that time back.
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