Mood:
quizzicalTopic: "Lox? Or Locks?" (7)
Frodo had established an exercise routine that took him to a gymnasium twice every week, and this had continued for more than four years. Briefly, procedure dictated that once he changed from his street clothes, he would place them in a locker and snap his combination lock thereon. When he returned from his workout, he would, from memory, spin the dial appropriately and retrieve his street clothes. That is, that is how it took place until the day that Bilbo died. Frodo could no longer recall the combination.
The ownership of the gymnasium was wise enough to keep a bolt-cutter for moments just such as these.
To this very moment, Frodo is unable to recall that combination. Tonight, he was confronted with a question regarding a check written during the same time period, and he peered into the telephone handset as if it were the property of some alien force intent upon the consumption of brain matter in Hobbits. Frodo rarely loses checks, but this was a mystery of time, as well as space.
Bilbo was convinced that lesser individuals, be they dark-skinned or Spanish-speaking, if not both, were intent on every imaginable felonious assault on the abode of Bilbo. Every time there was a perceived threat, Bilbo would change every lock in the house. Then Bilbo would lose one of the keys, and that meant that every lock would again be subject to change, and, since both Frodo and related Hobbits were great distances away, that meant that a set of keys would arrive, in the hands of a trusted postal person after every such incident.
When Bilbo's house was finally sold, it was no mean trick attempting to get appropriate keys to the trusted real estate property-disposer. When finally able to end his involvement, Frodo disposed of several pounds of keys, and there is no exaggeration in this tale of woe by the Hobbit. A few days ago, perhaps as the most subtle of jokes, Frodo received a package containing several pounds of keys.
How, if not where, to dispose of this final rememberance has confused Frodo as if it were a task of importance. Perhaps he will take one key, each year, and include it in a Christmas card to she who sent him this gift. Then again, he may put a key into each of the Christmas cards he sends, without explanation, thereby confounding everyone he knows. More likely, alas, he will simply forget about this good idea, and leave all the keys in a single box, lock it, and throw away the key. In the box there will be a note in Spanish.
