Walking home yesterday, I had to giggle. I walked past this group of five adults ranging in age from mid-thirties to at least sixty. They were arranged in a large black pajero, some inside, some outside, and all looking utterly frazzled. The car was parked right in front of a house with a large, impenetrable black gate, the kind with a tricircle keyhole. Gates like that lock themselves automatically from the outside, so you need a key to get back in.
From what I could gather, a lady had come to the gate to escort (or receive) her guests, and in the heat of conversation, had let the gate slip shut. And apparently, she had no keys.
I could see that the house was quite far from the gate, so yelling wasn’t doing much good. None of them was using a cell phone, so perhaps the house was empty. So the old man sat helplessly in the car, feigning disinterest, one guy tried to scale the wall [with much amusement and little success], one paced before the gate occasionally peeking in at the cracks for some divine solution. I don’t know how – or if – they got into the house, but they certainly made my day lighter.
In the past, the victors in this mess would be the smartest – the genius who could invent a bulldozer using nothing but a spare pajero wheel, a winch, and a match. Or perhaps the fittest, who could jump over the wall with ease. Or better yet, the strongest, who could ram headfirst into the gate, or throw someone over the wall. Of course in this last case, props would go to the lightest, since he is the one that actually got to the other side.
