You Can't Fix Stupid

I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures in this post.  I didn't know it was going to be a post until it was too late.

Anyway, if this entry had pictures, all they would show is two stupid people and a bunch of keys.

Oh, no, I guess that wouldn't work either--you can't take pictures of keys that you can't find....

So here, without pictures, is how the story unfolded.

When we bought our beach cottage, there was a padlock on the shed and one key to open it.  Doug had a really bad habit of putting the key in his pocket after opening the shed instead of bringing it right back in the house and hanging it on its little nail over the dining room doorway.  (I think that's because he was so excited about whatever chore he was going to do after he had the shed open.)

Anyway, the key would then turn up in the laundry after we got home to Newark, and we would have to remember to take it back the next time we went to Kitts Hummock.

I guess we finally decided to replace the padlock so that we would have TWO keys, which would obviously solve our problem.

Except it obviously didn't solve our problem because WE FORGOT THAT WE REPLACED THE LOCK.

Last weekend, we went down and couldn't find the shed key anywhere (still thinking there was only one key).  

We went back home to Newark and couldn't find it anywhere there either.  

This past weekend, Doug had a photo shoot, so I went down to the cottage armed with a bolt cutter and, in case that didn't work, a grinder to remove the lock.

The bolt cutter didn't even put a dent in the lock.  As for the grinder, it's tough to plug in a tool when all of your extension cords are in the locked shed.

So Doug joined me on Sunday, sent sparks flying with his grinder, got the old lock off, and put on a new one.  I took the two keys and hung one on the nail and then retrieved the little box where we have extra house keys hidden.

I opened it up...and saw a padlock key that looked almost like the one I was about to put in the box.  

I wandered back into the house and held up the key ring for Doug to see.

"Oh, I guess at some point, we replaced the lock," he said.  "I forgot all about it."

So the hunting for keys and the attempt to cut the lock off and the grinding had all been for nothing--there was a key that would have let us in the shed just a few feet away.

This time, I don't think we'll forget.

And, here, just so that this post is a little more visually interesting than my rambling words, is a picture of Saturday night's sunset at Kitts Hummock: