the office MacGyver

Yesterday I struggled to motivate myself to go to training after work. I had a heated debate in my head arguing for and against a run with a running club and a run with my broken ipod.

The decision was made for me.

I sneaked out the office early. Well in time, but compared with the past several days and weeks, early.

I squeezed past a red bike to get to mine and opened the lock.

Crack.

Bike key in two pieces. One in the lock. One in my hand.

I was gutted. But there was nothing I could do. I through the half in my hand into the bin and started walking home. In heels.

By the time I was home I had already missed training or the train that could have taken me to training on time. Well that was easy. However, instead of keeping company to my ipod I went to bed, thinking how to solve the newly appeared transport related issue.

This morning I got ready for work – pliers, bike/lock oil, spare keys. And heels. In my handbag.

I walked back to the office and straight to the bike rack. Luckily there was just enough of the broken key sticking out the lock (I have a chain lock as thick as my wrist so my bike was still happily there, waiting) for me to slowly twitch it out with the pliers.

Great.

Then the next mission. I took one of the spare keys and carefully opened the lock. It worked. I then sprayed the lock with oil so that it moved a bit more smoothly despite the wet and rain and rust. Done. And as I was at it, I greased the chains as well.

This whole process was carefully examined by some random office worker, who had come out for a smoke.

“Broke the key, didn’t you?”

I was very pleased I was not forced to resort to asking someone for big chain cutters – might come across as slightly suspicious. Besides, as my lock is worth probably more than my bike, would hate to see it cut in two.

And what do we learn from this? A set of pliers and a spare key are a necessity in every girl’s handbag.