Key-tastrophe!

I lay quietly in bed, on Tuesday afternoon, fully absorbed in an overtly dramatic episode of Desperate Housewives. Yet, in my relaxed state, a nagging feeling kept interrupting me, drowning the essence of my relaxation, as I was constantly reminded of the fact that I had not yet completed my new journalism blogging assignment. "Do something you've never done before" our journalist lecture excitedly proclaimed the previous day. That I've never done before? Really? Um...

The miserable drizzle outside intensified with every moment of my perplexity. It was only when the thick, velvet melody of raindrops dancing on the roof turned into hard distinct pounds, when I recognised that it had started to hail. In a moment of sheer brilliance I realised that dancing in hail is something I had never done before and would perfectly qualify for my assignment (no matter how painful it was). I instantly jumped out of bed to head for the door.

Filled with pluck and energy, I opened the door, and slipped the key into the security gate lock. As I turned the key, however, I found, to my horror, that it had in fact tore in half! Shocked at my astounding strength or at the simply pathetic quality of key manufacturing, I soon realised that I was stuck in my flat and had no way out. Alone and stranded, my neighbour came running when he heard me scream for help. With pliers in hand he and I both attempted to turn the very last bit of key that was sticking out of the lock. The victory was, however, short-lived as the pliers confirmed our belated hypothesis as it tore off all that what was left of the key.

In an act of desperation I plunged myself into every corner of the flat, in the hopes of finding a spare key that I was not confident even existed. It felt like hours before I came across a small, abandoned, silver key that was wedged into the corner of the kitchen cupboard, amongst the ironically dirty, cleaning products.

The key was useless to me, until I was able to remove the small fragment of metal lodged so intimately into the slit of the lock. "'n Boer maak 'n plan", I quietly whispered to myself, imagining what my mother would do in this situation. And so, for the sake of upholding the core of my cultural heritage, I simply realised that I had to force the fragment out, no matter what that would mean. With my golden, delicate and inappropriately expensive pair of tweezers in my one hand, and the stubborn industrial lock in the other, I started pinching... and pinching. It was only after twenty minutes had passed, when I was able to successfully unlock the gate and run into my long awaited freedom.

Both the hail and rain had stopped by now, leaving the familiar miserable drizzle behind to comfort me as I stood shocked, confused, and silenced by the entire scenario. I quietly returned to the safety of my bed, sat for a few moments and slowly grew pleased with the idea, that the entire ordeal was most certainly something I have never experienced before!