The sinking feeling when you hear that click

Door locks and I have a long and rather troubled history. One apartment I lived in had a front door lock that frequently became stuck. The first few times this happened, I called the super and the maintenance guy would come by and open the door with my key by simply turning it repeatedly in the lock - Five or ten minutes of that and I'd be in. My complaints to management fell on deaf ears, but one fine day I found myself locked inside the one-room, one-door apartment. The possibility of a tenant trapped inside a burning building because the lock couldn't be turned finally convinced them to replace the lock.

My next adventure with locks occurred when I was house sitting a few years later. I ran out of the house in my pajamas and bathrobe to grab the newspaper and let the door lock behind me. Several people had spare keys; unfortunately it was Thanksgiving and they were all hundreds of miles away. In the end, I thanked my lucky stars that I had a spare car key stashed on my car. I drove home where I could get dressed and had a locksmith let me in to the other house. (A side note: I was dismayed that a locksmith would let me into a house that I admitted wasn't mine without any kind of ID or approval from the owners.)

I've locked myself out of our current house once or twice, but luckily I have a husband with keys and a landlord who not only has spare keys but who also almost never leaves the house. Unfortunately, today Andrew was away at an all-day event and the landlord is on a trip. (You can already see where this is going, can't you?) While answering the door (wearing my pajamas and bathrobe, of course) I locked myself out of my apartment. I didn't lock the outside door, though, so I didn't have to contend with the heavy external door and multiple locks - just one oh-so-important lock. Using a borrowed phone, I called a friend who lives close by and owns tools. He also, it turns out, knows how to pick locks. In the end, the lock picking was supplemented with some well-placed levering, and I was in again.

I'm thinking of sewing spare house keys into my bathrobe lining.