Drinking alcohol is one of the global pastimes of working (and indolent) people everywhere. For some people it’s a hobby; for others it’s a lifestyle. Casting an eye away from concern for your professional well being, in this blog post I’ll detail some of the ways that having a night out on the town drinking might affect your ability to enter your home – and lead to your need for a locksmith.
Losing Keys
When drinking, you might want to consider giving a friend your keys to hold on to. This prevents the potential of you getting behind the wheel of your car while intoxicated. However, if you’re giving your friend your keys, pay mind to whether they are drunk or responsible to make sure that they in turn don’t lose them. It’s also a risk to potentially forget the fact you gave your keys to your friend, or exactly which friend you gave them to. Fortunately to the alcohol consuming public, emergency locksmiths exist for a reason.
Breaking Keys
Alcohol can seriously affect anybody’s ability to maintain successful hand-eye coordination. Even simple actions like inserting a key into a lock become oppressively difficult; to use a clumsy metaphor about clumsiness, imagine if every time you wanted to touch your nose, you touched your foot. Now translate that metaphor to trying to place your key into key slot. If you’re insanely drunk and the only thing you can think about is how badly you want to collapse into your bed, you might shove the key in the keyhole the wrong way, repeatedly, breaking or grinding off it’s details, or even worse, snapping it off inside the key slot.
Breaking the Lock
Alcohol can give people extra-human strength. Let’s say you forget your keys at the bar, or inside a taxi, and then get home, drunk, and all you want to do is get back inside. Some of the more confident among us might try to pick the lock – never a good idea for an amateur to attempt, especially when drunk. This could cause irreparable damage to the lock – damage that can be equalled or surpassed by manual attempts to force the door open – especially with the utilization of alcohol induced super strength. We’ve seen doors physically pried off their hinges by desperate intoxicated people – if you’re reading this you probably don’t want to even try anything like this, but just for the sake of safety, let us remind you – don’t even try it.
Forgetfully Compromising your Security
Even if you did remember your keys, you very well might forget to lock the door once you stumble inside and crash on the couch. It’s no surprise that the majority of crime happens between the hours of 2-5 in the morning; it’s when criminals expect people to be drunk and vulnerable, leaving themselves exposed to the dastardly machinations of others. In certain areas heavily populated by young people, criminals have been known to try opening street level doors, knowing the chances that one might have been mistakenly unlocked. Don’t leave yourself exposed to this threat.
Reducing your Chances of Drunk Lockouts
- If you know in advance that you will be drinking a lot, make sure to get good rest the night before, eat well during the previous day (and throughout your evening of drinking,) and most importantly, stay hydrated. It’s going to help your body deal with the effects of alcohol in a much more comfortable and healthy fashion, so that you can have your mental bearings when you arrive home.
- Make sure to be drinking with people that you trust. This makes it easy for you to leave keys with them in case you need them to hold them for safekeeping. Never leave your keys or phones with strangers that you don’t know.
- If one of your friend is the designated driver, make sure they carry everyone’s keys as well just to be safe. Since they (hopefully!) won’t be drinking, they will be able to keep tight track on the keys.
