The Key

You may remember last Sunday I said I didn't get back on the bike because of...something happening that I was embargoing till today? That wasn't some part of the more-than-almost lie, this was simply something so silly that it needed to be held from my folks until they came back.

They left on Sunday morning. d and I worked our asses off that day, each on separate parts of our little Rubiks' apartment, making progress and getting sweaty in our work clothes. It got to about 8PM.
"One more hour and we'll call it a night," we agreed. I went back to the office, and collected a large box of garbage to put out. Seeing me stagger down the stairs with it, d asked:
"Shall I come with?"
"Nah, I'm OK baby," I said, gathering the  keys for the garbage and storage rooms.
"Sure?"
"Yeah, no probs."
I pushed on out through the front door.

The relatively new, fire-safe, slamming if let go, front door.
But that was fine, because of course d was indoors, and could let me back in.

"Hold on honey," she said. "Let me open the downstairs doors for you!"
The flats we're in have a coded exterior door, you see, and my girl, in her tender care of me, was keen to rush down and open it for me so I wouldn't have to put down my box of garbage.

It's worth noting at this point that the garbage and storage room keys don't actually have a key to the relatively new, fire-safe, slamming if let go, front door attached to them.

We were down the stairs, about to go out through the coded door when the inevitable failure of our logic hit us.
"Bugger," I said.
"Oh..God..." said d.

A little visual for you. Me - fat bald bloke in sweatpants, a T-shirt, walking socks and slippers. d, in a summer dress and barefoot.

Trapped. Outside at night. No key. No phone. No money. No plastic. No folks (who had the only other key to our place), as they'd left for Cornwall earlier that day.

"Right..." I said. "Well, that kinda sucks..." I took off my slippers, and d stepped into them, so now we both at least had something on our feet. We tenderfooted it across to the police station.

The police station, at that time on a Sunday night, was locked. There was a phoen by its doorway. I picked it up.
"Merthyr Valleys Police, how can I help you?"
"Erm...well, this is not really a police matter, but my wife and I have locked ourselves out..."
Stifled laughter on the other end of the line.
"Who's your landlord?"
"Merthyr Valleys Homes."
"Annnnd you can't ring them."
"Dude, seriously - no phone, no cash, no plastic, no keys...Shared footwear!"
"Oh...right. I'll give them a ring and come back to you. Stay by this phone."
"Not really like we have anywhere else to go. Thanks."
Meanwhile, d had had a truly bright idea. We had the keys for the storage cupboard - where only a few weeks ago we'd put the winter coats, hats, scarves and boots. she flapped off in the slippers, and came back laden. Just as she reached me, the phone rang again.
"Ello," he said. "Talked to Merthyr Valleys Homes. They say they'll be with you in the morning..."
d pulled a wooly hat down onto my head.
"The...the morning?"
She tied a scarf round my neck.

"Nah, I'm only messing. They'll be there within an hour, they say."
"Ahahahahaha...Funny!"
Click.

We went home and sat on the stairs of the block, looking like orphans of the storm, and playing a rather stunted game of I-Spy.
"...something beginning with...D."
"Door."
"Yep."

Shortly, a van arrived, and out of it stepped a smallish, faintly shabby-looking saviour. He came up and we presented him with a locked door.
"Ah," he said. "Locked yourself out, 'ave you?"
"Just a little, yeah."
This was it, we thought - this would be the moment when he revealed some techie bit of locksmith's kit, waggled it about a bit and miraculously gained us entry again.

He pulled out a credit card. d and I exchanged a look behind his back.
He tried to waggle the credit card in the gap between the door and the frame. It didn't work. It didn't work on such a somehow heroic scale as to be almost impressive.

Well, that's that, we thought. We're gonna spend the night on the street.
"Kitchen window's open a bit, I see," he said. It was - about enough for a small Cappuchin monkey to waggle through.
He stuck his arm through the gat, bent it in a way which I had previously thought only orang-utans were capable of, and popped the window more fully open. Then he skinnied up and in, and introduced us to our home again. Our salvation was a house-breaker with a van.

And so, our evening was taken up with being locked out, and getting back in again.

Next morning of course, the very first thing I did was get a couple of keys cut!

d said something very important about this whole episode.
"I wasn't in the least worried," she explained. "We were together - what was to be worried about?"
She was right - we were together, and that was the key to not worrying. About anything, actually.
This of course has come back to us in the wake of yesterday. In the wake of potential disaster last Sunday, she trusted me to get us safely somewhere, and together we had a laugh. Last night, I came back to myself, and the first instinct I had - after taking a shower, admittedly! - was to get back to d, to tell her things, As long as she was with me, everything would be OK.

That's the key that neither of us will ever forget.