How is a small hardware store related to Intolerable Circumstances? This store is on a street where the rent must be high. Many of the things in the store have dust on them. Things do not get sold often. The rent must be high, but the manager says that things are fine. He is not worried about having to close. He has a display with yellow whiffle bats and white whiffle balls. He sells odd looking toilet plungers--ones that look part accordion. It is not clear how a small hardware store is related to Intolerable Circumstances. The man who owns the store is the only employee. It does not seem he abuses himself. He does not stand in his doorway and shout abuse at those who walk by. Who walks by?
There is a wooden case with a glass top. In this case are pocket knives. They have dust on them. The owner has a key machine. He has this machine in his widow. On top of the key machine is a metal rack that has many blank keys on it. Where does he get his blank keys from? Many people would like to order so many blank keys. They represent possibility and promise. They are not dusty. The keys are not dusty. They hang on a rack that's above the key machine. The key machine is an ILCO Manual Key Machine. Many people have wondered about getting such a key machine. Maybe it would be possible to find one used online. If many people were to get such a machine, they would have to figure out where to get the blank keys. Once they got the blank keys and the machine, they would be able to practice making keys before they started to make keys for a living. Or maybe they would make keys gratis for their friends.
It is difficult to think of an Intolerable Circumstance that has to do with making a key. After all, if you are making a key, then you are inviting someone in. The ILCO Manual Key machine is orange. It is an orange that people don't use anymore when they are trying to make a product. It is the orange of a plastic YMCA basketball, and it has grime all over it from the owner of the hardware store. The grime must have come from his hands since he's the only one who works in the store. The key machine is in the window--and close enough to the door--so maybe some of the grime is from the outside. The owner's hand oils and the soot from exhaust outside make up the grime.
The owner faces the key machine. He has a key. He has a key that someone wants copied. He has a key. He screws it into the left side of the ILCO. He takes a blank key from the rack and screws the blank key into the right side of the ILCO. When he moves the left side of the ILCO, the side with the key that's to be copied, it moves the right side of the ILCO, the side with the blank key. He turns on the ILCO. He moves the left side, and when he moves the left side, he runs the teeth of the key that's to be copied over a guide. He runs the teeth over a guide. As he runs the teeth over a guide, the right side of the ILCO moves and cuts teeth into the blank key. He runs the teeth over the guide two or three times. He unscrews the new key--the key that just a few minutes ago was blank--and runs an electric brush over it. He buffs the new key. He takes edges off it. And so he's made a key. It costs $1.50 to have a key made.
He says he never makes bad keys, but he says to people to go home and try their keys and come back if the keys don't work. He does not ask them about their lives. He wears an apron. When was the last time he went to the beach? When was the last time he floated in the ocean? There is red seaweed in the ocean. There are millions of little bugs in the ocean. They get in your swimsuit. They pinch you a little. It doesn't hurt, but it is strange--when they pinch you.
The ILCO Manual Key Machine. It is manual because you must use your hands, your manos, to operate it. It does not take much skill to operate the machine, and the machine does not look as if it's very expensive. But maybe it isn't expensive. And how expensive is a blank key? Is it 50 cents? Less? If it is less--and if an ILCO Manual Key Machine--can be bought used and for cheap, then it might be a good idea to have a key machine of your own. It would enable you to make your own keys and to make keys for your friends and people you wouldn't mind letting themselves in. You could make keys for other people. There is a power line pole right near your house. You could make a high-quality sign that says I MAKE KEYS FOR $2. You could make that sign, and there you go. You could make keys out of your house. It would cost $2. Sure, people could go to the hardware store, but what is 50 cents? Let them come to you. You will make keys. The ILCO key machine cannot make keys that say DO NOT DUPLICATE because those keys are much more complicated. Special machines make those keys, so if you lose such keys, you need to get them some other way. They say DO NOT DUPLICATE but certainly there are times when they must be copied.
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