Breaking and Entering

The Island King was late getting home yesterday and when he walked in I asked where he'd been.

"I was detained by the police!"

What?!

He was out shooting and he got to the last property on his list, pulled up and went to the door.

Our client had given him a key that had just been cut that morning and new keys usually take some wiggling in an old lock.

So he wiggled and wiggled the key and the door wouldn't open.

He calls the client and verifies the address and tells her that the new key won't work.

She tells him he's in the right place and to wiggle the key some more.

He does and after a couple of minutes the lock turned and the door opened.

He takes his equipment inside and starts setting up to shoot.

But, the door leading upstairs is locked and the key he has won't even fit in the lock.

Not the right key for this door.

And then an alarm went off. A loud, on for 60 seconds off for 60 seconds blaring alarm.

This has happened before when a client forgets to tell him about a security system so he walked outside and called our client.

She tells him the owner told her the alarm wasn't activated.

He holds the phone up for her to hear the alarm and tells her that the alarm is indeed activated.

She then tells him she'll call the owner and meanwhile he should go into the garage because there is a basket of keys in there and one of them will probably work on the door to upstairs.

He ignores the alarm and goes into the garage. No basket, no keys.

He calls her back. She's frustrated by now and asks him again if he's at the right place.

He tells her the address he's at and again they agree he's in the right place.

She tells him to look on the shelf over the washing machine and he'll see the basket of keys.

He tells her there is no shelf over the washing machine.

She is getting even more frustrated now and says "There is a washing machine and a dryer in that garage. There's a shelf over them. The basket is on the shelf. There's nothing else in there so you shouldn't have trouble finding it."

He tells her that there is all kinds of stuff in the garage including a very nice Mercedes convertible and a bunch of surf boards.

The alarm is still blaring.

She says there isn't supposed to be a car in the garage. He tells her there is.

She asks him to describe the inside of the house so he goes back in and tells her about the white couch and chair, the barstools and the dining room table.

She tells him that this property is unfurnished and he tells her that he's standing in the middle of a furnished house with a Mercedes in the garage.

And she freaked out.

"Get out, get out right now! You're in the wrong house! Get out of there!"

By now the Island King is completely confused. He walks to the front porch and reads the address off the mailbox to her and it's the address she's given him.

And the key worked.

She tells him she'll call him right back.

He walks out to the van and listens to the still blaring alarm while waiting on her to call back.

A couple of minutes later she calls him back and tells him the address is actually 175 - not 176.

He's broken into someone's home and walked around!

Except the key worked so he didn't actually break in.

So he goes next door to 175 and the key worked there too.

It was exactly as she described it - unfurnished with an empty garage.

They hang up and just about then a Walton County Sheriff's Deputy pulled up at 176.

So the Island King walks over and tells the deputy what happened.

But the deputy didn't seem to be buying it.

He took the Island King's driver's license and ran it. The Island King said the answer came back in all 10 codes but it appeared he isn't wanted for anything and now the deputy wants to know what's going on.

He talks on his radio a bit and then the alarm stopped.

And he still has the Island King's DL.

So the Island King tells him the story.

The deputy wants the Island King to show him how the key worked so they go up to the door and the Island King starts wiggling the key in the lock.

And of course the lock won't open.

He said the deputy was really starting to get suspicious now and the Island King told him he could call our client and verify the story.

Which he did.

She told him the story but he still seemed confused as to why the key worked once but won't work again.

He took one of the Island King's cards, gave his DL back, told him to be careful about the properties he was entering, got in his car and left.

The Island King said he stilled seemed a little perplexed but drove off anyway.

So the Island King goes back to the property where he's supposed to be and calls the client.

This client is one of a large group of Realtors that we do a lot of work for and when he called her back he could hear people in the background laughing hysterically.

He said he was going to tell her not to tell anyone but she let him know that everyone in the office already knew and were laughing about it.

They argued for a minute - her saying she'd been saying 175 all along and him saying he'd been saying 176 and she kept verifying it.

In the end they both agreed the other was wrong and that thank God he was now in the right place.

As he told me this story I laughed so hard my sides ached.

And he's pretty freaked out about walking around in someone's house.

He kept saying "What if someone had been home? They could have been taking a nap and I would have just walked right in their house!"

I think it will be a while before he lives this one down.

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