LIVING IN BELIZE – “Wild Goose Chase Trying to Duplicate a Key“ 10/15/12

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Saturday we had to go on a wild goose chase looking for a key duplicating place that could make a copy of a very unique key for us.  Recently at the Kumquat Cottage, we decided install a new sliding deadbolt on the front door, because the one that was there was inadequate, in our opinion. Mainly because it could only be used if you were home, from inside the house.

Our contractor told us about a different kind of deadbolt I’ve never heard of, where you can actually engage the deadbolt from outside the house – how cool! The key is twice as long as a normal size key, which we soon found out is a problem.  We went to two key duplicators in San Ignacio – neither of them had the blanks.  It was recommended that we try Spanish Lookout.

We hadn’t been there in a while, and I needed a few items from my health food store, Reimers, so we took a road trip.  Unfortunately for us, the hardware store there couldn’t help us either, and they recommend Belmopan. Grrrr…

While in Spanish Lookout, we decided to indulge and have a frosty cone at Western Dairies, one of our favorite guilty pleasures when in Spanish Lookout.  I also picked up some Vitamin C and Echinacea. As we were leaving the area and heading East on the Western Highway towards Belmopan, it started pouring rain – I mean hard.  There goes all the towels I had left on the clothes line back home!

At this point, we had completely lost track of time, and as we arrived in Belmopan, we realized it was 12:45 p.m.  Of course, the key place was closed (most places in Belize close for lunch). Great!  Since an ice cream cone lunch does not make, and we had some time to kill, we decided to go to Pasquale’s and get some sandwiches to go, since we needed to get back to San Ignacio as soon as possible.

While waiting for our order, I ran into the President of my Belmopan International Women’s Group (BIWG), Amanda.  She wanted to know if I was going to their annual dinner/dance meeting on October 26.   She said the theme was Grease and everyone was dressing up. I told her I couldn’t imagine anything in my closet that I had brought from the States that would even come close to sufficing for the event, but I’d consider it.  Grease, after all, is one of my favorite all time movies – it could be fun!

As bad luck would have it, even after waiting until 1:30 p.m., the key place still hadn’t opened. We assume they must have been closed for the day, so after making one more stop at a local hardware store, and being told they didn’t have blanks, yet again, we threw in the towel and headed home. Seems we will have to go to Plan B (or is that E?) to get this darn key copied!

Do you ever have days where you are stuck chasing your tail?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/tklein9382 Tina Klein

    I am curious to see a photo of this new deadbolt..when you get a chance.thanks!

  • http://www.wealthships.com Sharon Hiebing

    Sure, Tina, I’ll get a picture of it next time I’m at the cottage. If I had known what I was getting myself into, and that it would be the subject of my next blog, lol!, I would have taken a picture of it before embarking on this journey. Thanks!