Keep Kids away from Keyholes

The events of this little story took place about a week and a half ago.  At the time, I was drowning in reports that needed to be written for school, so I didn’t take the time to tell the tale right after it happened.  Now, after having about a week to recover from that marathon of manuscripts, I feel rejuvenated and ready to relate the events that took place on a Thursday afternoon at our office in Kalisizo.  I should also warn you that I’ve been reading some epic poetry lately (finished The Iliad a couple of weeks ago, about halfway through The Odyssey now), so that may lead to an exceptional amount of rhyming and/or alliteration in this post (as the title already shows…)

That morning, Max and Prossy (two of my coworkers) traveled to Rakai Town (where the district offices are located) to attend a coordination meeting for NGOs and district officials working in the water and sanitation sector.  As I said, I was in the middle of a lot of writing for school, so being alone at our office may have actually been a good thing for me, so that I could completely focus on those documents that needed to be completed.  On Thursdays, we normally have a Skype meeting with Marc, the US Executive Director of Brick by Brick, which usually starts at around 3 PM (8 AM for Marc, calling from New York).  On this particular day, Max had asked that we push the meeting back until 5 PM, to make sure that he and Prossy would be back from Rakai in time.

At about 4:45 PM, I start to get a little anxious.  I am still the only person in the office, and I haven’t heard anything from anyone.  It is common for meetings here to start late and to last a long time, but, even so, they should have been back by that time.  I grab my phone to call Max, and then notice his phone sitting on his desk.  Probably about 50% of the time, Max forgets to take his phone with him.  I have no idea why this is the case, but there it sits.  Calling Max is not an option.  Option 2 – call Prossy.  I do not see her phone lying around anywhere, so I dial.  After hearing rings for about a minute with no answer, I hang up, even more vexed.  “Is anyone going to come,” I ask myself, “or will this just be a quick conversation with Marc about the relative nature of time in Uganda?”

About two minutes before 5 PM, Prossy walks in.  A flood of relief washes over me as I see her walking through the door, and I learn that Max is parking the car around the corner of the building.  As the two new arrivals sit down, Marc calls, but we’re still missing one member of our team.  I answer the call, and, just before saying that we’re missing someone, we spot Suzan walking across the field in front of our office.  As she walks in, our collection is complete, my anxiety alleviates, and our meeting initiates.

(See, this is what I’m talking about – rhyming and alliteration.  Even after I stop reading one of these massive poems, I feel like I keep thinking in (bad) verse…)

Anyway, after the meeting is finished, I talk for a bit with Max, Prossy, and Suzan, and then they decide to go home, since, by this time, it’s almost 7 PM.  I want to get through the paragraph I had been working on, so I don’t leave with them.  Obviously, Max is going to give Prossy and Suzan a ride, so all three head for the car, which, as I said, is around the corner, out of our line of sight when sitting inside the office (this is a key plot point).  I return to my paragraph.

A few minutes later, Suzan walks back in.  I look up, wondering what has been forgotten (Max’s phone, perhaps?  Nope, not this time).  Suzan comes over to me, saying, “These kids have put pieces of wood into the keyholes.  We cannot enter the car.  Ah, these children are very stubborn.”  (I’m paraphrasing – remember, this happened like 10 days ago, and I didn’t write it down when it happened).

“Huh?”  I eloquently respond.  We have some pretty mischievous and devious kids around the office, but I’m not exactly sure why we couldn’t just pull the wood out of the keyholes.  To prepare for any eventuality, I grab my Leatherman Multi-Tool out of my backpack (this post could easily become a commercial at this point – never leave home without it, it really does fix any number of difficult issues), and Suzan and I walk back out to the car.  Max and Prossy, along with another woman (possibly the mother of some of the so-called stubborn children), are looking at the car, appearing to have little idea as to how they should proceed.  Upon seeing me approach, they step back to let the “engineer” work.  (I’m really not much of a handyman, but people seem to think that engineers can fix just about anything…)

“Oh, I see,” I mutter despairingly, as I look into the keyhole of the driver’s side door.  Somehow, these kids really did shove tiny, little pieces of wood, only a little bigger than splinters, deep into the hole, and it was completely filled.  Max couldn’t get the key in to unlock the door.  There wasn’t any wood sticking out, either.  It was all shoved in there, so that you couldn’t just pull a piece out.  After considering for a few seconds and thinking about the plethora of tools available to me in the single instrument I grasped in my hand, I whipped out the small flat-head screwdriver and started working it into the keyhole.  Employing a variety of angles, I began to cause some movement amongst the wooden fragments.  (Exaggeration and overstatement – also important parts of epic poetry…)

As the pieces begin to be dislodged, I switch to the pliers, grab hold of some of the pieces, and pull them out.  Progress!  Now only several more pieces to go…  Alternating back and forth between the screwdriver and the pliers, the remainder of the wood is pulled out after a few minutes.  As I’m working, I mutter the obvious, “We should make the kids pull these things out of here, so they understand how annoying it is to get them out.”  Unfortunately, no one else seems to get that this might be a decent method of discipline, one that might actually prevent this issue from occurring again.

Anyway, the multi-tool saves the day, with some finesse from the user (the characters in these epics are sometimes not the most humble of people).  Max gives me the key, I slide it into the hole, and unlock the door.  Shouts of joy and exultation are heard all around…

I sheathe the multi-tool and walk back to the office, hearing Max say something like, “Ah, my good son,” with the air of a parent, proud of the skills and abilities his son has acquired.  Yes, I went back into the office, pulled up my resume, and added “proficient in removing small wooden fragments from car keyholes” at the top of the document.

Lessons learned from this little episode:

1.)    Park the car where you can see it.

2.)    Never leave home without your trusty Leatherman Multi-Tool (cue product jingle).

3.)    Keep kids away from keyholes.