In today's "This is SO WEIRD" news of my life...

[xiphias]

I just got to the gym, went to my locker.

My lock is missing.  Nothing else, everything IN the locker is exactly where I left it last week.

Just the lock.

The front desk gave me a new one, so I'll have to memorize a new combination, but mainly, this is just strange.

Comments

[yendi]

[Realizing that the analogy here is on a much different scale]

I'm currently listening to a great series of podcasts on the Manson Murders, told from a Hollywood history perspective. And one of the things I've learned about Manson and his family is that they'd break into rich people's house at night, rearrange furniture and move stuff, but take absolutely nothing, just because they wanted the people to freak out searching through their stuff without knowing what happened.

Stealing locks strikes me as a similar sort of prank (albeit one I hope doesn't have the same degree of escalation.)

[ckd]

Benign scenario: they had to cut someone else's lock for some reason, got yours by mistake, and are bad at communication so nobody who knew about it told anyone you've talked to about it.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They've got a bypass key, as well as a list of all the combinations; if you rent a locker, you have to use their locks so they can clear it out if you don't pay. Presumably, if they did that, they could just put the lock back when they realized their error. (It's not high-security. You're not supposed to keep anything more valuable than stinky gym shoes in there when you're not there.)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

There was a guy in our high school who went through and stole everyone's lock (old spinny combo locks). They're easy to get off if you have a hammer or strong/durable hands.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

At one point, I was able to pick those locks, at least the cheap ones that were part of our lockers. Those, you could feel where the correct numbers were. Couldn't do it with DECENT locks, and I doubt I could still do it with the cheap ones.

But still ... why just mine?

[ckd]

Yeah, that's weird then. *shrug*

[l33tminion]

The most likely explanation is that you put the lock down somewhere and then lost track of the fact that you hadn't already put it back on the locker.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

An excellent and logical thought... but why wasn't it at the front desk where such things are turned in?

[l33tminion]

Some possibilities:
* It got kicked under something and wasn't found.
* If you have a gym bag, the lock could have been put in the bag and carried out of the gym (significantly less likely if you checked any bags and didn't find it).
* Someone found the lock while cleaning and put it in a pocket or bag, planning to return it. Then they forgot.
* The person who found the lock tossed it instead of returning it, since that's less work (or maybe it was some random person who didn't know it should be returned).

But probably will never know for sure (unless it turns out the lock is among your belongings).

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't have a gym bag: I leave my stuff in the locker.

I'm going to go with "picked it up, intended to return it, and forgot" as the likely explanation. It is a mystery and will only be solved by happenstance, so I'm just not going to worry about it.