Eventually, ultimately, sooner or later, I can be quite specific. Usually, customarily, more often than not, this seldom occurs when I am speaking. I’m not fast on the draw, on the uptake or on my feet for that matter. Also, if there’s a way to interpret a phrase figuratively, that’s the way my mind will construe it. So, when my husband handed me a writing pad titled Assa Abloy – the global leader in door opening solutions, I did not immediately think, “Oh, this must be from that garage door shop he visited.”

No, no, no – my first words were, “Door opening solutions to what? Anything?  That’s quite a claim – and to be a global leader and not just a local leader!”

My next question was, “Weren’t you on a fishing trip in Lac la Hache? How did you get a free writing pad – a big one – eight by twelve by thirty pages, from some world renowned company that professes exceptional explications?”

Actually, I was running with this global leader concept because although I hadn’t put my reading glasses on I thought I could vaguely see a lack of explanation as to what problems this company might be offering to solve.  Smugly, I reasoned that they would miss out on a few sales, even with a free writing tablet, if they failed to mention what they actually did.

Of course, it did not occur to me that they actually were door opening specialists – I mean, it seems – you know – not that hard.  Not hard enough to stake your marketing scheme on it.  Usually you just turn the knob, right?

My romp in the land of word play screeched to a stop when my husband asked, “You have any idea how big the doors are for those big trucks in Fort Mac – or how many different kinds of garage doors or entrances there are world wide?”

Suddenly it dawned on me that this was one of those conversations that we often have where he posits rhetorical questions for me to answer and when my word-playing mind takes the bait, I get bonked on the head with reality (we were on our way to fish at Seton Lake when he handed me the paper) and learn some things I never expected to and sometimes never cared to.

So here I was, learning stuff, using up the front and back of two or three pages of the free memo pad and wondering, “Do people that visit this kind of shop typically have big shopping lists? Are they, like me, opportunistic writers who scurry out what I presume would be the most efficiently opened door in the world to write down the story ideas that have boiled to the surface while they talked garage doors?”

I had put on my reading glasses to do my writing and while I half listened to my husband and half entertained myself with the possible reasons for handing out writing tablets, I saw the bullet points at the bottom of the page enumerating the solutions: semi-automatic sliders; handicap swing operators; loading door equipment; security gates and shutters and more.  Oh.   

For a few seconds, I pondered reality. There were, I supposed, technician courses to accompany these various kinds of door openers – there would be jobs designing them and manufacturing them – it’s a whole other world and a quick search of the name once we got home informed me that this company even has a university!

Like I said, though, this well reasoned thinking only lasted a short while because with my glasses on I had also noticed the twenty-four hour emergency service offered by the company and I was recalling the panicked thirty seconds I had endured in the RV site shower room in Clinton. The door skewed jauntily which meant that the deadbolt had to be wrestled into position. Consequently, it held fast when I tried to leave and it wasn’t until I was preparing to yell for help and wake everyone at six thirty in the morning that I deduced my own door opening solution and pushed the door upwards until the weight came off the deadbolt. 

Who knew that help was available universally, twenty-four seven, just for this very situation?