A friend of mine works in a petrol station, and at this station they also do maintenance and repair work on cars. Today, two of the mechanics took a car back to a client, who was out of the house when they arrived. They left the car where they’d picked it up that morning, which was on the neighbour’s driveway. One of the mechanics (we’ll call him “Bill”) knew it was the neighbour’s house, the other one (we’ll call him “John” for the sake of it) didn’t. So Bill lets John post the keys through the neighbour’s letterbox before piping up “Hey, this isn’t the guy’s house, he lives next door.” Bill’s good like that, he likes to see other people cock things up.
Let’s skip forward a couple of hours. The client calls in to the garage (I’m not sure how he got there, maybe a friend gave him a lift). “Is my car ready?” he asked. “Sure is,” said “George”, the boss, “and it’s back at home waiting for you.” So off the guy goes and half an hour later there’s a phone call to the garage.
“Where are the keys?”
“Through the letterbox.”
“Which letterbox? Mine or the house you left it outside?”
“The one we left it at.”
“That’s my neighbour’s house, she’s away in China for three weeks. I need my car keys.”
Bill and George then go off to the neighbour’s house, where George makes Bill dangle a magnet through the letterbox on a piece of string to try and get the keys back. The more they try, the more they don’t get the keys. The client is going mad, he’s off on holiday himself in a few days and needs to pack his family and luggage in the car to drive to the airport 250 miles away.
After an hour, the neighbour’s neighbour, a little old lady, comes out. “I’ve been watching you for a while, trying to work out if you’re up to no good or not. You don’t look like burglars, what’s going on?” she asks.
“We posted this guy’s car keys through the wrong letterbox by mistake.”
“Oh,” she says. She pauses, and then remembers something. “She left me with a spare key to the house. Shall I go and get it for you?”
Well, duh!
