As I was sitting down to write this blog post, a couple of sister missionaries knocked on our door. “Do you have a key to our back door?” they asked. I have a key ring with a key to the front door of each of the sister missionary apartments. At least once a week a set of missionaries lock themselves out of their apartment. This time, however, the situation was potentially a lot more difficult. They had thrown the deadbolt on the front door and then, for some reason, exited out the back door of their apartment. After closing the back door, they realized the door was locked. Their key didn’t seem to work to unlock the back door and it also definitely didn’t work to unlock the deadbolt. Hence their question: Did I have a key to the back door?
I didn’t. I also didn’t have a key to the deadbolt. I asked them to try once again to see if their key would open the back door. Reluctantly, they trudged out back and tried. Wonder of wonders, after several tries, the door suddenly unlocked! I’ve no idea what we would have done if it hadn’t worked. We came back home and tried our only key on the back door. It doesn’t work on that lock. I also don’t have a key to the deadbolt on our front door. So, now I need to have a conversation with the Facility Management people who take care of the apartments and make sure I have a key for every lock, deadbolt, front and back, of each of the apartments. If it’s possible to lock themselves out of their apartments in unusual ways, someone will find that way! And, now that I know I don’t have all of the needed keys, the longer I wait the higher the likelihood that someone is going to get “permanently” locked out. Ugh.
Yesterday Nina and I had planned a routine day and serve our normal shift in the morning at the Visitors’ Center. However, we got a call at 6:45am that one of the bicycles needed air in a tire and the seat needed adjustment. We got that done. Then the apartment next door called to say that they had a big puddle of water on the floor in their bathroom. The previous day their toilet wouldn’t flush. I’d checked that and found that the little chain that lifts the stopper in the water tank had come loose and fixed it. Supposedly all was well.
However, the puddle of water was a mystery. They told me that they had heard “water sounds” in the bathroom and didn’t know what those were. I couldn’t find a leak. We cleaned up the water and went to the Center. Because of the 4th of July and a planned picnic for all the sister missionaries that evening, we closed the Center at 4pm so people had time to get ready for the party. As a result, we were relieved from duty at 1pm rather than the normal 2:30 pm. We liked that as we also had an assignment to take tickets at the Polynesian Cultural Center from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm, so this would give us a few extra minutes free. Except it didn’t. The sisters called again to say that they were still getting puddles of water and it was now out into the carpet in the hallway. So, we came home, changed clothes, and went over to investigate. What I found was one of the gaskets around a bolt connecting the water tank to the toilet had disintegrated and water was dripping onto the floor. The tank would slowly empty, eventually the filler mechanism would trip, and the tank would fill back up with water (hence the “water sounds”). There are two bolts, one washer was completely gone and the other nearly so. A quick trip to Ace got me two washers ($4.99). One bolt came out and was readily replaced. The other would not budge. It took an hour of working with the bolt, drilling holes so that the screwdriver could get purchase, and a lot of sweat, and the bolt finally came out. Another trip to Ace Hardware. This time I had to buy a gasket kit to get the bolt ($14.67). A half-hour later the problem was solved. No more water on the floor and no more mysterious water sounds.
We had a nice time taking tickets and came back to a really fun picnic, games, and root beer floats to end the evening. Another Fourth of July well celebrated!
Life is sometimes hectic!