I've got the key...

I had an appointment at the hospital this evening.  I left work slightly early and hopped on my bike to head over to the Treatment Centre.  I was supposed to check-in about half an hour before my appointment to give the nurses time to do all the prep work and fill out all the paperwork and consent forms with me. I left plenty of time and arrived early enough to pop across to another clinic and drop off some paperwork I took home by mistake last time I was here.  Yeah.  I have a lot of doctors.

Anyway.  Apparently QMC is a hotbed of cycle theft, so I took my bike inside the building to the bicycle racks next to reception and started locking my bike up.  Well, I tried to lock my bike up... but I couldn't open up the D-lock that I had locked around the frame of my bike as I cycled up to the hospital.  Whatever I tried, I couldn't get the key to turn more than halfway in the lock and it remained stubbornly locked.

I've got a Kryptonite lock.  It's one of the really good ones; a 10/10 that should really give a thief a bit of a challenge to get off -- and you're only trying to slow them down enough to make it too much of a risk to stick around long enough to steal the bike.... but of course, it doesn't do me any good if it's locked around the frame of my bike and not locking my bike *to* anything.

I tried and tried to make the bloody lock work, but the clock was ticking, I was dripping with sweat and I really needed to go upstairs and check-in for my appointment.  I looked at all the signs around the lock-up area telling me all about the bike crime in this area, and I left my bike, cursing the damn D-lock and expecting to probably never see my bike again.  Once at the clinic, I spoke to my wife on the phone and she suggested that I pop back to reception and ask them if they could maybe keep an eye on it... better than nothing, right?

As I was waiting for the receptionist to deal with someone else, a thought occurred to me.... could it be that I was in fact using the wrong key?  Apparently, I've kept the spare key of the D-lock that was stolen on the ring with my house keys, and the key for the new D-lock on the same loop at my pass for work.  Guess which one I'd been trying to use?  Yup.... the wrong one.  As soon as I used the right one, I was able to lock my bike up without any problems.

And I fancy myself as intelligent.