On Monday, I was getting ready to leave the house and while I was putting something in the trunk of my car, the key broke off. I stood there for just a minute with one part of key in my hand, trying to figure out whether I should laugh or cry. I ended up just chuckling and then shrugging my shoulders. Then I went back in the house and got the spare key and went on my way. I was fortunate that I was at home when it happened and that I did have another key to the car.

This was the latest in the series of issues with the locks on my car. The first had to do with the power door locks no longer being power door locks. Then I started having problems getting the driver's side door lock to turn when I put the key in it - especially in Boston when it was cold. Then, after I got the door fixed from the wreck I was in last January, the lock no longer turned. So for the last year or so, I've had to unlock the passenger door, climb across the seats and unlock the driver's door, then walk all the way around the car to get in. This daily charade hasn't been that big a deal - and certainly not a big enough deal to warrant spending several hundred dollars more on the car - so I've basically just lived with it and gotten used to it and it's been fine.

So when the key broke off Monday, my first thought was, "Well, I guess it's time to get all this stuff fixed!" And then I promptly procrastinated and decided I would deal with it "later." After all, I was able to get into the trunk with the auto-open lever in the cabin of the car so it wasn't much of an inconvenience.

And then today, I was talking to my older brother on Instant Messenger and mentioned the little problem.

"Dab a little bit of super glue on a paper clip, stick in there and then PULL." I could, maybe, get the key out of the lock myself? What a novel idea!

And that's when it struck me that sometimes we all have little areas of blindness in our lives. We see one possible solution to each problem and don't even think of alternative ways to solve our problems. Seriously, in this case never even occurred to me to think of trying to get the key out myself. I don't know why; it just didn't. I just thought, "well, there's another $200 I have to spend."

So after my brother suggested it, I tried the super glue method. That didn't work, but in trying to get the super glue to adhere to the key in the lock, I noticed that the key itself was pretty loose in there. So I got a second paper clip and fiddled with it until I got the key out. Voila!

So all is well with the world again, I s'pose. And hopefully this lesson will stick with me for a little while and the next time something like this comes up, I will remember that a) the first solution we think of may not be the best one, b) talking wth a LOT of people about stuff before we do it usually helps to find the best solution and c) sometimes procrastination is not the worst thing in the world: waiting for the right answer to present itself is also a valid approach.