The Lock

The obvious reason

After a long day at the office and a long commute, Gordon slid the key into the front door lock and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Not again,” he said, knowing he should’ve changed the tumbler one of these days because he had to jiggle it just right to get it to turn. He was hoping today wasn’t that day, especially since he was still on the outside.

He stepped back onto the sidewalk to make sure it was the right house and the right street. Gordon had chosen the wrong house once after he first moved in and didn’t want to repeat that fiasco.

Nope. Right street. Right house.

He shoved the key into the lock again and tried to twist it, wriggling it but not forcing it. Then he rang the doorbell, hoping his wife was home early. No answer.

“The back door,” Gordon thought. He went around back and tried the door. Locked up tight, and he could tell the top was latched from the inside.

“That’s odd,” he said looking down at his set of keys. “Where’s the front door key?” Normally he had two similar keys on the chain, one for the upper lock and one for the lower. They fit in both the front and back doors. Neither he nor his wife used the upper lock key much unless they were headed out of town. The other key – the main key – was for the lower locks but it wasn’t on his keychain.

Gordon pulled out his phone and texted his wife at the hospital, something he rarely did since she was an ER nurse. If she received a text from him during the day, it had to be important.

“At home. Can’t get in. U take key off my keychain?”

Two minutes later, he received a text from his wife:

“Yes I did. Oopsie. Forgot to tell you. Lost mine and needed to make a dupe. Forgot to return it.”

“Hurry home.”