They've changed the lock on the bike shed at work. Well, I say bike shed. In reality, it serves all manner of purposes, including housing the snow plough that they finally invested in a couple of years ago to ensure the place never again had to be shut down because of a particularly heavy snow fall. And, of course, it's worked like a charm: the place has indeed not had to be shut down because of heavy snowfall. But that's mainly because we haven't had any.
They've changed the padlock, but not the code. This should be a good thing - the padlock will no longer get rusty in rain, or do whatever it did in very cold weather which meant that it just gave up and refused to move like a sulky teenager who's locked themselves in the bedroom with a bag of Doritos and a box set of Girls. Now that the padlock has been changed, everything should be shiny, new and effortless, and the whole putting my bike away thing at the start of the day, and the retrieving my bike at the end of the day thing (both very similar things) should be events that are so mundane that they don't really deserve to be called events.
If I'm honest, they still are mundane that they don't need to be called events, and certainly not of enough interest to be written about on any public forum (such as this blog, for instance), but at the start and end of each day, I find myself getting needled, rattled and frustrated. These are three feelings you really don't want to be having at either end of the day. You kind of expect them during the day, that's part of the deal, that's why you have endless cups of tea and migraines as coping mechanisms, but the simple act of getting or leaving your bike shouldn't be a source of frustration.
It's particularly annoying at the end of the day. I have exactly nine minutes to get out of work and catch the train. If I miss that train, it's nearly always impossible to get the following train, because that one is stacked with excitable college kids and gently glowering building site workers. There's not even enough space to claim 'standing room only', and even when there is, most of the kids elect to do this curious thing where they're going to stand in the doorways of the train for the entire journey, even if they're on the train for fifteen stops and forty minutes. Even if, after a while, entire carriages have eventually become empty. It becomes difficult to get on such a train if the doors are blocked in such a fashion, and downright impossible if you've got a bike in tow. People who are needlessly blocking train doors get curiously uptight about letting you on with a bike.
All of this becomes of paramount importance when I'm trying to get my bike out of the shed. If I can make the nine minute journey to get the earlier train, I manage to get the connection that's pretty much empty. It feels like I'm getting a train in the middle of the afternoon, only used by mothers on their way back from toddler group, and youngsters on their way to sign on to the dole. It's a different world. It still depresses me that it took me the best part of five years to discover that it was possible for me to make this connection. But in order to get to this train on time, I need to simply - get - my bike. No fussing, no messing about. Certainly no enraged tumbling around of the numbers for the twentieth time as I attempt to unlock the padlock from the bike shed door.
Because the problem with the new padlock is that it doesn't quite work. I should be clear here. If we judge a lock purely and solely in its effectiveness as just that - a lock - then it's a fine lock. A dandy, there are very few locks that are more secure than this lock. The cast of Ocean's Eleven would be befuddled, confused, and finally exasperated by this lock. It wouldn't be as great a film, but it might certainly be on par with Twelve and Thirteen. The aspect in which the lock fundamentally fails is the whole un-locking part. It just doesn't. It refuses. It doesn't refuse entirely, of course, but confusingly, you have to wriggle the numbers around slightly so they don't quite match up in the correct order. Once you've managed to guide all the numbers in exactly the correct position (by which I mean the slightly wrong one), the lock will effortlessly and easily slide open. Like it was meant to in the first place. I don't have time for this sort of thing. Literally, I don't have time. I have a thirteen minute journey to cycle in nine minutes. The amount of time I've got for screwing around with this padlock is one minute, tops.
But here's the thing. The really frustrating thing. Because, being me, the frustrating thing can't just be the frustrating thing - there has to be another frustrating thing on top of the original frustrating thing, just to put a highlighter pen to the whole, general frustration of the thing. Because, despite the fact that the new padlock is stupid, ridiculous, and unhelpful, despite the fact that it only works if you nuance the tumblers in some secret way that is only clear after doing ten years of mystical chanting and Zen like meditation - despite all that: I'm the only one who has a problem with it. Everyone else who uses the bike shed on a regular basis - and there's at least six of us - have no problem with the padlock whatsoever. 'You just have to wraggle it about a bit,' they declare, cheerfully. WRAGGLE IT ABOUT A BIT?!? I rage, in my head. This is supposed to be a security measure, this is supposed to be the thing we rely on to ensure our bikes don't get nicked. Surely it can't all depend on things being wraggled about a bit?
I don't have time to say any of this, of course. I have a train to catch. In less than seven minutes.
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