lunch time in the bank vault

I had the key to my lock box the day I dashed into the bank on my way to lunch. I needed it to take out birth certificates for a spring trip to Mexico. The clerk solemnly handed me the sign-in sheet and quietly watched as I scrawled my name on the designated line. She graciously escorted me to lock box 101, inserted the bank’s key into one lock and waited calmly while I crammed mine into the other lock. I opened the heavy metal door and pulled out the thin, black box, grabbed the papers, shoved the box back in and locked the tiny vault door. Even with the formalities I was in and out of there in minutes.
The week after the trip I stacked up paperwork to take to the safe deposit box and went to get the key. It was gone.
On my lunch break, I stopped by the bank to explain my predicament. The gentle woman was so sorry but a new key would cost me $20.
I authorized the making of a new key and scribbled out a $20 check. A few days later I signed for a very official looking envelope carrying my key and a note to stop by the bank to be sure the new key fit.
I planned another stop at the bank during my lunch break to verify the key and store papers. The clerk turned the bank key, I twisted mine The door did not open.
She tried twisting my key and hers together. The door did not budge.
The fix-t guy came. He tried turning both keys, filed a minute burr off my key and tried again. The door stayed put. I watched them fiddle with the lock. I thought about going and doing something else, like eating on my lunch hour, but I couldn’t leave: Banks have this cardinal rule that the lock box renter must be present when the box is opened.
The fix-it man gave up. “We’ll have to drill it out.”
“But you won’t have to pay the $50 fee for drilling open your lock box,” the genteel clerk assured me. “It’s our fault the key does not fit.”
I sighed and agreed to take and early lunch break in the windowless basement of the bank watching the man drill the lock out of my box. I took along a novel to read during my noisy lunch break at the bank. For 30 minutes the fix-it man drilled, poked and prodded and jiggled with the long thin tools trying to loosen the tumblers. The lock did not yield.
With 20 minutes left to my lunch break, he broke through. I retrieved my box, transferred the papers to another box, added the ones I had been carrying around for a couple weeks and went back to work.
That was the end of it … until the cool breeze of winter descended last week. My daughter put on her jacket to wear to town. She stuck her hand in the coat pocket and pulled out the small cardboard envelop labeled 101. The long lost lock box key. I had left it in her jacket when I went to the bank before the spring trip. During the lunch hour rush, I had stuffed the envelope and key in her borrowed coat pocket and forgot where I had put them. The key is useless now, but after many lunch breaks it had returned.


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