About that new lock….

Turns out I’m not quite the locksmith I thought I was a few weeks back. Why’s that? Well, the new lock sort of broke this afternoon. I had just gotten the bolt to engage one time when the lock stopped turning. Not entirely, mind you, but it wouldn’t unlock or roll into lock place 2. It was just there. I wiggled. I jiggled. I scratched my head. I saw my neighbor who said what, in hindsight, must have been “It’s a lost cause” or something to that effect in Russian. I jiggled some more. At last there was some movement!

Unfortunately, that movement involved the lock cylinder coming out of the lock 3 out of 5 pins worth. I understand the concept of lock pins better now. Mostly because three of them fell out of my lock. So at that point I decided it was on to plan B. Plan B involved a trip to the bazaar where I bought a hacksaw blade and an entirely new lock assembly. After that I finally dropped in to see my host family.

Hadn’t been by to see the host family in a while. Mostly because they’d been ill over the last week or so. My host mom had been in the hospital for over a month. She looked like she’d been going through quite a lot – several bandages and bruising – but she was in good spirits. Also, she made sure I ate until I nearly exploded. And I couldn’t have been happier!

After that, Batyrhan came back to help me try to get into the apartment. Good thing he came because my hacksaw trick didn’t work. Blade didn’t fit. Ah well, only out 50 tenge on that one. Instead Batyrhan used pliers to pull the old lock out. Seriously. The thing just snapped in half. Then he used a screwdriver to release the bolt. Unfortunately, I think the mechanism might have been broken as a result. No big deal, that’s why I bought the other lock, right?

Sort of. Turns out the new one needed a bit of tweaking to almost work correctly. Batyrhan invited his friend Yerbol to come help us out. Yerbol is a lock specialist, I’m told. He got the thing to work, so I believe it.

The first time I removed the lock I was amazed at how the thing was barely held together. All the screws were barely in place. I thought that was shoddy at first. Today, though, I learned that those screws are actually to adjust the lock. Yeah, the janky setup may have actually been my lock, fine-tuned. Frightening? A bit. I was also reminded that things from China, like my new lock, were pretty much junk. After all the time it took to make the thing almost work I can’t really disagree. Sorry, China.

On the bright side of things, they should be turning on our domaphone any time now. Even though the door to my apartment is secured with a cheap Chinese lock that may or may not last through the end of the month I’ll soon have a fancy new electronic lock system for the main entryway. That’s something, right? Plus, I still have that nice steel door that keeps people from knocking directly on my and my neighbor’s doors (I’ll admit a little confusion over the proper agreement here. I have a door and my neighbor has a door, hence two doors. However only one of those is actually mine. Why is English so hard???).

So yeah, another exciting day. Tomorrow it’s back to the host family’s place. They had borscht today and they said it’s always better the second day – like chili, I suppose – so I’ll make sure to take them up on the offer. Maybe some lesson planning later on. Beats me. Good grief. Who knew locks could take up so much time?