"Mount a pin-lock mechanism on the sliding door..."

said the new insurance policy we took out the other day, otherwise there would be no cover for the contents of the house if there was a break-in. The pin-lock has to be ninety degrees to the normal lock on the sliding door to prevent the door from being lifted off the track, so I toddled off to the local hardware store (not Builders Whorehouse, it's too far away) to see how they could help me.

While I was there, I picked up a couple of burglar guards for our bathroom window which, until today, didn't have any and I was reluctant to leave those windows open at night for fresh air or when we went out for fear of having some fucker come through them and rip us off, or worse.

So, ZAR446 later, I toddle off home via the car wash and stick the bakkie through for a "wash 'n' go" to get the salt residue washed off and to make Gertie all shiny again.

I quickly installed the burglar guards onto the wooden window frames using one-way screws so that they can't be unscrewed again to give someone access through the window. I almost cocked it up by pre-screwing one of the screws into the frame to act as a pilot. Luckily, I remembered after only a few turns that they were one-way only and I had to take it out by means of a pair of pliars. No harm done, I had my pilot hole and successfully installed both guards.

That done, I moved onto the sliding door and the pin-lock. I figured out that it needed to be mounted to the bottom of the door, seeing as SWMSBO is not the tallest of people and would not, because of the height of the door and the step, be able to reach and unlock the lock if I mounted it to the top of the door.

Again, I used one-way screws, remembering not to try and make a pilot hole with one of them, lest I want to use the pliars again. That done, I closed the door to see where I needed to drill the hole for the pin to push into so that the pin would lock in place. The end of the pin has a small protrusion on the end of it to allow you to push the pin onto the door which will leave a small mark where you have to drill. Again, simple enough, and the hole was drilled.

At that point, I stood back and pressed the pin to check that it worked. It did. It clicked into place indicating that I'd drilled the hole to the correct depth. And you can guess what happened next.

I couldn't get the door open again. I had left the keys on the floor just inside the door. I could see the fuckin' things gleaming up at me, gloating. "Here we are", they shouted. "Fuuuuccckkkk", I shouted.

So, after thinking I could maybe go around to the back door and let myself in that way, I remembered I had just come back from the hardware store and hadn't opened that door yet. I also couldn't just jump in the open bathroom windows cos I'd just fuckin' installed fuckin' burglar fuckin' guards on them, with one fuckin' way fuckin' screws.

I thought I was screwed. I had visions of standing outside in the wind with the dogs, waiting for SWMSBO to come home, so that she could first gloat and laugh and then kak me out for being so fuckin' stupid cos she wouldn't have had one of the new keys either.

Gathering my thoughts, I figured I could use a piece of wire to lift the keys off the floor, only to find that we had left the window I had in mind closed thanks to the storm-strength south easterly wind that's blowing today.

Then I remembered that all the bedrooms have doors that open out onto the patio and that the middle bedroom door's keys would be within reach of a piece of strategically-placed wire. Into the garage, I found and straightened an old coat-hanger, made my way to the bedroom window (which I knew is always open for the cat to move about freely) and managed to move the keys into sight. Thankfully, the key ring was sticking up and it was a piece of piss to hook the ring with the wire and bring it to the window, where I stood patting myself on the back for being such a clever idiot.

Once I was inside, it was a case of heaving a sigh of relief and tidying up the tools. The piece of coat hanger wire now has a place of seniority and reverence on the workbench as it may be needed again sometime.