Why a Duplicate Key is a Good Idea

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you would know that last night I managed to lock myself out of my apartment. For 2.5 hours. Without my cell phone or shoes!

I was taking the trash into the garage where our bins are, and the door that leads into the garage always swings shut but it's NEVER locked. Well, guess what? It was locked this time and I didn't know! (One of the roommates had been locking the door because one of our garage doors is broken, which I didn't know either, and can just be lifted open so anyone could essentially get into our apartment.)

When it rains, it pours: My one roommate is out of state on vacation til this weekend and the other was on a business day-trip about 2 hours away. I was able to finally get in contact with him via a neighbor's cell phone (after calling my Mom to get his number, since I didn't know it off the top of my head) and he was stuck in traffic, but headed back. On top of all that, we did have another key outside, but our landlord had asked for it back, so my roommate put it in an envelope. But never mailed it. So it, too, was in the apartment!

I am going to buy a magnetized key holder to put somewhere on my car and get my key duplicated in case this ever happens again. It was frustrating and annoying, since I couldn't do any reading. Luckily the stove wasn't on and my crock pot was on the "warm" setting. Lesson learned, and now looking back, kind of funny!

Do you keep a duplicate key somewhere?