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Midnight
12:00 a.m.
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Whatever you call it, it's late. Especially when you have to get up at 6:30 for work (ok, maybe I usually end up getting up closer to 7).

Where was I at midnight?

Nope, not in bed.

I was outside my apartment building, sitting on some very cold little cement posts.

Why?

Not because I forgot how to get home.

But because I couldn't get into my home.

Not because I forgot my keys.

But because my key wouldn't work.

The key worked fine on the front door to the building. But when I got upstairs to my apartment, the key wouldn't turn in the lock. It was 11:20 or so. Late to be bothering the neighbors. So I fiddled with it for 20 minutes or so, believing that surely it would work eventually. Then it's 11:40. But I can't get into my apartment. So I go down to the neighbor who has helped me with other household issues and I knock softly, but firmly on his door. No answer. I was not willing to ring his doorbell.

What to do?

I called my friend Nicole, who lives just a little ways away in Feuerbach and with whom I had had dinner tonight (or last night now, I guess). She looked in the Yellow Pages (yes, we have them here, too) and found the number for a locksmith who is available 24 hours a day. She called him (I had no pen to write down his number) and gave him my address and everything. And he came in 15 minutes or just shortly after midnight (by which time I really needed to go to the bathroom!). He used some wire to get the door open. (I was not crazy, the key really didn't work.)

What was wrong?

The cylinder in the lock was simply broken from overuse. He offered to install a new one, but then didn't have any new ones with him. So he turned it around (I have a lock on both sides of the door) as the (former) inside cylinder works just fine. And that was that. And that cost me 100 Euro!

Ah, the joys of apartment living......(no back door)