Ocimum tenuiflorum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\u201cIt sounds like you didn\u2019t have the key for your neighbor\u2019s house,\u201d I told her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, no,\u201d she assured me. \u201cIt was his house key. He gave it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDid you ever successfully use the key to get in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell\u2026no. But it was my neighbor\u2019s house key. I\u2019m sure of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Realizing that this discussion was not going to be productive, I explained the steps she would have to take. This is a discussion that I\u2019ve had with countless housesitters and petsitters in the past. Because it\u2019s not your house, I can\u2019t just let you into It, I told her. I would need to feel very secure that the owner of the house has given approval to let me let you into the house. What I\u2019d like to see is a photo of your neighbor holding his ID, along with a note from the same source giving me permission to gain entry to the house. I would then check the neighbor\u2019s name against public records. Once I had all of that I could do this job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Okay, but it\u2019s middle of the night in India. I don\u2019t want to wake him up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis will have to wait until tomorrow, then.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat if I just show you my ID and prove that I\u2019m the neighbor? Then will you let me in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I explained why that would not be sufficient. I reiterated my request for the owner to send a picture of himself holding his license. In reality, I believed her. It would be very audacious to hire a locksmith to help her commit a burglary. But I enjoy my livelihood and my freedom, so I\u2019m not leaving any room for doubt, and especially not over some house plants. So I left her to decide whether she wanted to meet my conditions or start looking for a less punctilious locksmith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning I awoke to an email in my inbox. It contained the note I had asked for and two photos. One was of a driver\u2019s license bearing the address in question, and the other was of the subject of that ID. If you\u2019ve been reading carefully, you already know that this is not quite what I asked for; the owner and ID were not in the same photo. What\u2019s more, the name on the ID was not the same as the name in the email address. I looked closely at the owner\u2019s photo and noticed that the home the person was standing in looked very much like one of the newer houses that I frequently visit in Bothell. So I checked the photo’s metadata, and sure enough, it had been taken three months prior. This raised more concerns than it settled. It\u2019s like if I\u2019d asked someone from a dating app to send me a picture of herself holding up three fingers to make sure she wasn\u2019t catfishing me, and she sent me a photo of herself in front of Epcot holding up the peace sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn\u2019t work for me, so I had to get back to the neighbor with the bad news. She didn\u2019t take it well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAw, come on,\u201d she cajoled. \u201cI gave you almost<\/em> everything you asked for. Can\u2019t you just make an exception for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry. No. It looks like we\u2019ll just have to wait another day to get the right documents from your neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cListen,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very important that I get into that house. My neighbor has trusted me to take care of his plants. And inside he has a HOLY BASIL. This is an extremely important plant in our religion and it is very delicate. I must water it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I\u2019ve let people into houses in a hurry for all kinds of reasons. Once a lady was trying to get to a job interview on time. One time a young woman desperately needed to get to her medication. More than once a locked door has separated a caregiver from a small child. But this horticultural emergency is the strangest and least compelling reason I have heard to break protocol and risk helping a stranger commit a crime. As desperate as this customer was, and as much as I like playing the hero, the holy basil didn\u2019t move me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we waited another day for the owner to send what I asked for. In the end I opened the door, confirmed that the broken-off key had nothing to do with the lock that it was lodged in, and made a working key. I assume the basil was fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an epilogue to this story, I should say that later in the same day I was in the home of another Indian customer, recounting this story with some curiosity as I worked on her lock. She went off into another room and came back with a leaf, which she handed to me. It was, indeed, the leaf of a holy basil plant. I wasn\u2019t sure if I should put it in my mouth, but she encouraged me to try it. I would say that it tasted like a cross between mint, basil, and clove. She confirmed that it serves an important religious function and explained to me that it is a very delicate plant that is hard to grow in this climate, and that it is particularly sensitive to overwatering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I received an interesting call from a customer in Bothell. She told me that her neighbor had entrusted her with the task of watering his house plants when he went for an extended trip to his home in India. But there was something wrong with the lock because the key he gave her wasn\u2019t working … Continue reading “Horticultural Emergency”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHorticultural Emergency - David the Locksmith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received an interesting call from a customer in Bothell. 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