I locked myself out
Yesterday, I closed the door behind me with the key still in it on the other side. I was a bit distracted by a spider chilling in the doorframe, and wanted to help him go outside. In that, I forgot that my key was still in the inside of the door, stepped outside, and closed the door. Immediately, I knew I made a mistake, because I couldn't lock the door. But, I had something to do, so I went on my way and figured I could call someone later.
So that's what I did. On my way back, I called a locksmith. They had an emergency service number, so after a quick chat, they sent over a guy to open my door. Would take about 30-45 minutes. Great! Not too long, especially because it'd take me about 10-15 minutes still to get home.
So, I got home, and I waited. An hour elapsed, and I figured I'd call them back, because there was still no sign of the guy that would be coming. Turns out, the guy had an issue with his car, and now a different guy would be coming and it'd take another 45 minutes to an hour. He also hinted that the 1-hour estimate was conservative and it'd likely be closer to 45 minutes. And sure enough, after 50 minutes of waiting, I get a phone call from the guy that's on his way, that it would take 15-20 more minutes.
So after over 2 hours of waiting (for a service that advertised getting someone on location within 20 minutes), finally the guy arrives. And apparently, the combination of a non-standard thickness of door, the type of lock, and the fact that they key was still on the other side in the door made it impossible to open without damaging the lock. But even if the guy was scamming me, what am I to do? Send him off and sleep on the curb?
Anyway, guy drills out the lock, and I can finally enter. I did slightly burn myself trying to take out the key from the other side because as it turns out, drilling metal makes it hot - who would've thought. Then he goes back and forth a few times between his van (that he apparently parked rather far away) to produce a suitable lock and installs it. The silver lining, I guess, is that he didn't have the type of lock that I asked him to install, and so he installed a better one for the price of the cheaper one. But boy, it was not cheap. Basically set me back like $1000. Oof!