Erin The Great

I believe my days as ‘Erin the locksmith’ are about to be over. For the last 5 years or so, I’ve been the resident ‘locksmith’ for anyone in my apartment building that on occasion has locked themselves out.

It all started a couple of months ago when I lost the ability and the patience to pick locks, thus leaving my friends locked out instead of into their apartments. This was indeed frustrating since up until recently I haven’t found a lock I couldn’t pick. I’ve now found many, and what’s even more frustrating is the fact that my butter knife trick now seems completely useless.

My moment of mounting shame is upon me! Last Sunday night my friend Jackie had locked herself out. As she told me of her predicament, I was already on my way upstairs to get a butter knife and my lock picking set. I tried picking the lock for about 5 min and decided to use my knife trick instead. I had at the window for a little bit and after about a minute, the window slid right open… Horray! I had done it! I got in! My pride was soaring! I was not a failure for the hundredth time this year at getting someone into their house. I climbed through the window and unlocked the door and immerged from the apartment victorious. I went back around and shut the window, took the ladder back, and walked back over to my friend’s apartment. We reached the door and low and behold it was locked! What? You have got to be kidding me! How could it be locked? I just opened the door! I looked at Jackie and that’s the time she decides to tell me that her door automatically locks behind you when you leave. Crap!

There was no way I was going to be defeated by this apartment! I went and grabbed the ladder and started going at the window again. The very same window that I had so easily gotten open the first time, was now giving me much grief now! I tried opening that thing for almost 20 minutes when I finally gave up and admitted defeat. I was tired, scraped up and a little sweaty after putting some serious elbow grease, and a couple of encouraging swearwords to help it along, but to no avail.

I stand here extremely humble. For where the lord giveth, he also taketh away. There is nothing worse than losing a talent. Even when it is a shady talent that I was using for good!