Break Out From the Lock Up

By Paul Buckley

Ever wondered where the worse restaurant in the world is? I offer up one on the Big Island in Hawaii for your consideration. Is airport security these days a form of harassment? I think I have discovered the most subtle and cleverest Keep Our sign ever, or perhaps you know a better one? Changing trousers used to be easy, but not if you’re thinking of Cargo Pants. The sophisticated art of queue guessing requires some skill to get it right. What is the one thing the Volkswagen Polo does not need? It’s timing belt changed. Escaping from the town of Tekapo in the winter can be tricky. There may be several ways Shirley can make her house burglar proof but there is definitely one which will leave her locked out. Ten year old Marcus loves buttered chicken, and don’t try to trick him out of it. And other helpful tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Buckley
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310427398

Paul Buckley

Paul Buckley has written more than twenty books some of which are available in ebook formats. Paul passed away in 2017. He lived most of his life in Palmerston North, New Zealand, a small city with a long name, a city that is well worth visiting. This is the place where the City Fathers constantly shift their river around to stop it flooding. Things he liked: rainbows, walking in warm rain, the sounds of strong wind, shared laughter, traveling on trains, surprising photos, hot nights, generous acts and thoughtfulness. Note to travelers, Palmerston North is in the North Island and not to be confused with Palmerston, a tiny town in the South Island of New Zealand.

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Break Out from the Lock Up

Paul Buckley

2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBN-978-1-310427-39-8

Copyright 2015

Break Out from the Lock Up

When Glenys Mahoney sold her house, she had to store her furniture until the new house was built. This disconnect between the time you must move out of your old house and the time you move into your new house happens to many people, and always adds unnecessarily to the cost and stress of the shift.

The nearest storage site to Glenys’s old house is built of shipping containers. At some future time I imagine whole cities will be built from these easily recognized and readily available building blocks. After the Christchurch earthquake, the first shopping centre in the ruined heart of the old city was built from shipping containers, all painted in bright cheerful colours that lift the atmosphere. Containers are actually in fashion now. When Glenys and I first take a look at this storage centre, we are both impressed. The containers are arranged in neat rows with plenty of room in between to allow trailers and trucks to be parked alongside their container. Glenys was even given a choice as to how high her container would be above the ground.

The owner does not waste much time in giving us our briefing. You have a card you swipe to get in and out the gate. When you swipe the key on the way in it switches the alarm off and when you swipe it on the way out it switches the alarm on again.

Is this regardless of the sequence you use? I ask to be sure I understand.

"Yes, every time you swipe the key on the way in the alarm is turned off regardless of what has happened before and it’s the same on the way out. Every swipe at exit switches it on.

What happens if we inadvertently switch the alarm on when we’re in the container? I ask.

The alarm sounds here and a signal goes to the security company. If you don’t ring their number soon enough they will come and charge you $60 for a call out. You won’t want that to happen. If you lend a friend the card so he can exit to bring more furniture to the bin while you are in the bin, the alarm will go off when he leaves and you risk a fine.

He goes on, It’s $200 on the 20th of every month regardless of which month. So it’s about $45 a week.

A bit more detail, If there is any vehicle in the gateway, the gate it will not close until it has gone. Another sensible feature of this security system.

Glenys signs up.

Her new house is completed just before Christmas and she shifts during the Christmas-New Year break. The bigger stuff is carried by trailer but boxes that will fit into her small red car are ferried over by Glenys and Greer.

At 7:30 on the evening in question, Glenys drives over by herself to pick up another load. She fills her car up and drives to exit but when she swipes her card the gate doesn’t move. She tries again, still no response. Perhaps the card is damaged but no matter how many times she swipes her card the gate doesn’t move,

Glenys has to face the fact that she is, trapped in the storage yard. Her first thought, and it would have been yours too, was to call Aloha to come over and help but then she realises her cell phone is at home. There is no one in the yard and there is no emergency phone (an obvious mistake by the owner). Furthermore the storage complex is in a light industrial area without any houses nearby. Well there is a School on one side but at 9:30 p.m. in the middle of the holidays no one is around. No matter how much she shouts no one will hear. She is trapped.

Glenys thinks careful through her options and there are not many. She could sleep in her container but as this is one of the last loads there are only boxes left. She has precious little to eat. She could simply wait, until Greer and her mother Aloha finally notice her absence and try to find her. But this is not her option of choice. All three live in the same house or at least in two houses adjacent to each other with a door through the side fence to make access easy. Another option, the one that must have seemed most intimidating was to scale the eight-foot wire fence, a fence with four strands of barbed wire across the top.

Glenys is a dynamic person who is well used to solving problems. She is not someone who sits around helplessly hoping to be rescued. No, despite the obvious problems, she will climb the fence. After all it is only a wire fence, it is not electrified and it is barbed wire, not razor wire that guards the top.

So she carefully parks her loaded car in what looks like a car park and clutching her keys and swipe card tackles the fence. After studying the fence, she spots a weakness in design. The barbed wire ends on the post before the gate and resumes on the other side of the gate. This allows the gate to open and close and let cars and trucks through. The gap is not wide enough to allow her to squeeze through but will provide a secure hand hold that is not protected by barbed wire. Personally I still find the thought of crossing the barbed wire intimidating, but Glenys is determined and begins climbing. The lower wires present no difficulties

Then a moment’s lack of concentration by Glenys leads to another problem. The swipe card and keys fall out of her hand and drop to the ground inside the locked yard. It’s yet one more good reason why women’s clothing should have pockets. For a moment of two, she thinks will have to climb back in and start again.

However after studying the new situation, Glenys decides she will be able to retrieve them after completing the crossing by using a stick to drag them back. Glenys reaches the ground with only the tiniest tear in the top she is wearing. She finds a stick and successfully drags the key to her. Glenys tries swiping the card gain but is not surprised when the gate does not open However looking ahead; she hopes this will ensure that the alarm is turned off when she returns in the morning.

Glenys relaxes as she walks down the darkened road but then once again the recalcitrant swipe card and keys drop out of her hand. There follows a desperate search in almost total darkness. She scrambles about on the ground trying to feel the keys. Then more by good luck than good management she finally grabs them near where she first noticed they were missing. She off on the long walk back home again.

Meanwhile her mother, Aloha, is becoming seriously worried (as mother’s will do) about Glenys’s absence. At just before 10:30 she calls on Glenys’s best friend Heather to help. Of course Heather is more than willing. I’ll phone Glenys and see if she replies. And she does. Across town Aloha should have heard Glenys’s cell phone ring because it was on the table next to her phone. However the battery is flat and she hears nothing. Getting no answer Heather prepares to widen search but before she can set off on a rescue mission, Glenys walks in the door. It is 10:30 p.m.

So what went wrong with Glenys’s Storage Centre key? Although this important information was not mentioned at her briefing, the Storage Centre shuts completely at 9 pm, at which time no one can get in or out. However Glenys concedes this was mentioned in the written information she got later.

Glenys has more to tell, When the owner got back on the 7th January, he asked me if I had trouble getting in.

I ask Glenys, Did you tell him you couldn’t get out?

"No I just nodded and smiled. We don’t have to embarrass ourselves unnecessarily, there’s something about the 5th Amendment. And the last thing Glenys wants to do is give the owner a reason to strength the fence. What will happen then to someone who gets trapped inside after 9 pm? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

My family and friends tell me I must never go anywhere without my cell phone in the future, Glenys tells me as she finishes her story.

How many of us I wonder would have made it safely over that fence and walked home? Certainly not me.

Wrapping the House in Cotton Wool

I confess, it was me who stopped all progress on insulating our house at 17 Waterloo Crescent from mid-November until Christmas in 2012.

The next stage would have involved work on the large back bedroom. But during November and early December I will now be busy preparing my 2012 annual book for the printers. Also at this time of the year, I must produce and send out our New Year’s card. This year I want to be available help Glenys shift into her new house. I expected all this work would be completed by August when I did have time. Now there is no way I can shift into the front bedroom too.

So for once I put my foot down and told Hire a Hubby to go off to other jobs and clear their books so in the New Year they can give their full attention to us. Or at least this is the theory.

The work on our house resumed in early January 2012 and at first it all went swimmingly. With Mark the new Manager on the job, work began punctually on 31st December. Mark, unlike Nic the previous manager, is very focussed and by the end of the first week the insulation is in place and Mark has almost completed gibbing the inside of the outside walls and in addition our new vanity is installed.

When it came time to do the painting, Mark took off and sent in the loyal Jason in his place. At this stage Mark, in his new role as manager, attempted to be too efficient and things, for, us began to fall apart. Being too efficient, or rather attempting to be too efficient, is OK if it only involves you but in this case it involves a third party, us. Jason was firmly told by Mark that he had only one week to complete the painting, which frankly was not realistic. All the other so called little jobs he still had at to do on our house, were put on hold while Jason went off to other jobs.

As a result our project limped only slowly toward completion. In the process I improved my nagging skills, as I wheedled away at Mark to send Jason back. When he did it was never for long enough to allow Jason to finish the work on our place. Inevitably he had to return again. We have learned our lesson the hard way, never again to use the services of Hire a Hubby on a big job.

But how short the human memory is, how quickly are the difficult times are forgotten. It seems to be the way the human memory works, or at least the memory of an optimist like me does.

We still have chinks in our armour. The toilet, the washhouse, the surrounds of the back door and the kitchen are still not insulated. At the start of the project these rooms with their many cupboards looked too difficult to insulate. I think there last steps will disrupt our lives too severely. But it is not long before Bruce pushes to complete the job and of course I want to do this too but