Monday, August 18, 2008

Keys

Keys, you humans have a bunch of keys.  You shake them at babies to amuse them, dogs, not amused by shaking keys.  When you think of a key you usually think of one that opens a lock.  Keys also have different meanings. Key to the city. Key to solving the crime.  The key to your heart.  I'm using keys to type this blog. The box in the corner of a map, that's a key.  It's almost back to school and a teacher uses a key to grade a test.
 
The Chipmunks sing in a key that hurts my ears.  The "big man" in basketball defends the key.

OK, back to the key that opens a lock.  Fancy hotels and even not so fancy ones use card keys.  You swipe the key in you door like a credit card.  Most of the time they work, but have you ever had one that didn't?  Mike and Laura did, in a huge Las Vegas hotel.  15 minutes to get to the front desk, 15 minutes back to the room.  They could have lost $100's in that time.  Do you have a key to your front door and another key for the dead-bolt?  A lot of houses are like that.  Dead-bolts were not common before the mid 70's.

Mike and Laura stayed at a Victorian style B&B a while back.  They had 2 keys to the front door and one key to the room.  The keys were on a bent spoon as a key fob.  None of them were marked.  Mike ran out to the car to get something and couldn't figure out which key in what lock to use.  Good thing the innkeeper was in the lobby to let him in.  Now imagine staying at this place, having dinner out with a bottle of wine, it's dark, late and you can't get in the front door of a B&B you paid a lot of money to stay at.  Not a good feeling.

Here at The Craftsman B&B, your room key opens your door and the front door.  It's that easy.

Locksmithing has been a trade for a long time.  You can go to a locksmith, or a hardware store like we did, and tell them you need a key that will open this lock and that lock but no other locks.  We gave them our floor plan as a guide and they said, "You can pick it up tomorrow."  Now why would you want to stay at any other lodging when you know you just need one key here?  If they haven't figured out the one key opens all, what else haven't they figured out?

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