Mortise locks

Locked outta the gym

Watching either my BJJ or kali instructor do their thing is always something impressive. It’s like they can read your mind and know what you’re going to do before you do.

It really just comes with experience and knowing what’s possible versus what’s probable. The longer you do something, the more you see what the likely outcomes to things are.

I’ve run my building for decades now. Think I first told you about it some 16 years ago but, really, I’ve been managing buildings with my dad since the 90s. Did my first big deal when I was a senior in high school.

Kinda like Trump and his dad but without the greed, lying, and closeted racism.

Because of that, I’ve seen the same mistakes happen time and time again.

One thing I’ve had the worst luck with is a specialized lock called a mortise lock. Up until recently – I’m guessing due to things AirBnB and people wanting higher-end stuff – it wasn’t very common here in the US but is super common in Europe.

Except in NYC where almost every building has these goddamn things.

They’re elegant but very confusing to people that have never used one before. Because one single lock with one single key controls three different types of locking mechanisms on a door; a single mortise locks:

1. 1. 1. the knob itself
      2. a deadbolt built into the lock, and
      3. the latching lock.

To make things even more complicated, there’s an internal toggle that switches on the knob lock (number 4 in the diagram below). So, let’s just say that there are three “locks” in this single lock.

They’re mechanically beautiful and like most beautiful things, troublesome.

It’s hard to explain but if you’re ever in NYC, just go to any old building and check out the locks. Chances are good, it’s a mortice lock.

Anywho, when Chad and I opened up the gym, I knew that this lock was gonna cause us problems.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to return to NYC after being in NJ with Alison or the reporter (who also lived in NJ) because someone got locked out due to one of the three locking systems of the mortise lock locking a tenant outta their pad.

So, I hooked up this very elegant wifi enabled lock to bypass the mortise lock entirely in the gym with the kicker being that we could unlock the lock anywhere in the world.

But the students kept yanking at the wifi lock, because it’s oddly shaped and some people thought it was a handle, breaking it.

Super frustrating.

Chad was mindful of costs, which I understand, and didn’t wanna replace the wifi lock and I was too busy to fight him on the matter.

Unfortunately, he got COVID earlier this week so people had to cover class. That part was fine. The issue arose when one of our buddies, Thundercat was helping around in the gym and locked all three of the locking mechanisms on the mortise and also locked the deadbolt we had the wifi lock attached to.

Obviously, he was trying to be helpful so it’s not like he did anything wrong per se. But since we never used the mortise, no one had a key for it.

Long story short, about 10 people, including my kali instructor, were standing outside for over an hour waiting for Chad – who was still sick with COVID and had to schlepp all the way from his warm bed – to come by with the one key necessary to open the lock. Poor guy.

He went up alone because he had COVID, and didn’t realize how the lock worked – again, not his fault either, look at that damn thing, hence my wanting to bypass it altogether with the tech solution – and told everyone to go home before I had a chance to say anything.

I wanted to take a look and expected that Thundercat broke the key in the lock because Chad couldn’t get it open but it turns out that it was just the trickiness of the lock itself.

By the time I opened the gym up, several people already left.

Honestly, I feel that I shoulda insisted on replacing the tech lock and sealing off the toggle of the mortise, which I finally did with athletic tape.

But it’s so hard to explain and I always figure it’s best to just let people figure things out for themselves.

Like I said, I’m upgrading my OS. I’m trying to focus on just making sure I’m working ok before I try to fix anything or anyone else.

Me: Put on your long socks.
Him: I don’t wanna.
Me: You gotta trust me on this, kid.
Him: I don’t wanna!
Me: [In my head: It’s raining. Which means you gotta wear your boots. If you wear your short socks, they’ll get pulled down in your boots, which means that you’ll keep stopping every five minutes to fix them, meaning we’ll be late for school] Hokay. But we’re not stopping for any reason.

He wears long socks when it rains now.

Location: yesterday night, telling people to not die on 18th Street
Mood: super tired
Music: You’re a good soldier, choosing your battles Tsamina mina, eh, eh Waka waka, eh, eh Tsamina mina zangalewa (Spotify)
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