Specifications

T
here I was, trying to prepare for an
audit by the State of Texas on our
Workman’s Comp figures (Nothing
personal, they said. They just reach
into a hat each month and pull out a
certain number of names to audit.) when
Don poked his head into my office.
“Busy?” he asked.
He had to stand on tiptoe to see
over the mound of paperwork that
surrounded me as I waded through a
year’s employee records. Not only was
I researching information to make
lists of various overtime payments,
contract labor, and the like, I also had
to fill in a stack of forms to take with
me to the audit.
“Wonder if you can give me a hand
back here,” Don continued without
waiting for me to respond. “We’re
trying to unload a safe, and I need you
to hold the door open.”
The safe in question was a new one
recently purchased by the local junior
high school. A few weeks back,
someone had broken into the school
and burglarized their light-duty fire
safe in the main office. After peeling
back the corners and opening the top,
they had stolen money from the top
area of the safe. However, they hadn’t
been able to reach a large quantity of
cash at the bottom, due to a shelf they
couldn’t get around.
Responding to a school official’s
call, Don ordered a BF 1716 AMSEC
safe for them, along with a couple of
other safes for our inventory. As the
junior high school lacked funding for
a heavy-duty burglary safe, this
seemed a good choice.
When TexPac delivered the safes
to our store, Don slipped the driver a
ten dollar bill to drop the school’s safe
at the school warehouse. Following
TexPac there, Don opened the carton,
checked the safe, and notified school
personnel that it was there, and they
moved it into the junior high school
office themselves, that afternoon.
The next night, someone broke
into the school office again. They tried
to peel this safe, too, but had no luck.
Then they banged up the dials, bolts,
and handle, obviously trying to get
into the safe that way, to no avail.
Apparently frustrated, they tore up the
office and left empty-handed.
The next morning Danny, one of
the school maintenance men, brought
beat-up entry door knobs and locks
into our store for repair and told us
what had happened.
“What about the safe?” Don asked.
“They banged it up pretty bad, but
it doesn’t look like they got into it,”
Danny replied. “The thing is, nobody
can get it open, now, to see for sure.”
“How are they trying to get into it?”
Don asked.
“I’m not sure,” Danny said.
“Maintenance is working on it.”
“Tell them to call me, before they
really mess things up,” Don
suggested.
S
everal days passed, and no one
called Don for help. Finally, Don
contacted the school and asked to
speak to the man in
charge of getting
the safe open. He
was passed down
through the burea-
ucratic layers in the
maintenance de-
partment until he
was finally told the
man in question
was the school elec-
trician, but he
wasn’t in just then.
They would tell him
to call Don when he
returned.
Another couple
of days passed
before the man
called to ask if Don
could get into the
safe and how much
he would charge.
“I’d have to see
the condition of the
safe before quoting a price,” Don told
him.
The electrician said he’d bring it
down to the store.
More than a week passed, but no
safe. Don called them again.
“Oh, they took it to maintenance,”
he was told. “They’re planning to take
a torch and pop it open.”
“What do you mean, ‘pop it open’?”
Don asked. “Look,” he said, trying to
calm down a bit, “anything you do now
is going to mess up the safe worse and
make it harder for me to work with.
That’s going to wind up costing you a
lot more, in the long run.”
“They just want to see if they can
get it open.”
“Don’t! Bring it down here and I’ll
do it for you.”
“Okay, okay.”
Ten days passed. The telephone
rang. Don recognized the voice of the
school principal.
“Don, can you get this safe open for
us?”
112 • The National Locksmith
by
Sara
Probasco
Pop Art?
“I showed you our entire stock of locks. If you
want something even less expensive may I
suggest this?”
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