Cloyce and locks

That old employee, friend, and erstwhile compatriot of me Grandpa Joe, the one I call Cloyce just to give him a name, was, shall we say, dense. A few straws shy of a bale. A brick short of a load. A bubble off plumb. A good guy, just not particularly smart. He was as sharp as a bowling ball. He had a room temperature IQ. He...you get it.

Years ago, Joe had bought a new trailer for carrying welders, pipe threaders, and other equipment around. But he had nowhere to put it, and wanted it as safe as could be. So he decided that the thing to do would be to get a heavy chain and solid lock, and chain the trailer to a large elm in his back yard. He went to the hardware and purchased the necessaries. On return, he sent Cloyce to lock the trailer up. "Lock her up tight!" were he last instructions to Cloyce. Cloyce went off to attend the chore.

After work that night, Joe was sitting on his back porch with a smoke and decided to go admire his new trailer. He walked up to it, looked it over, and walked around it just for pleasure. When he was half way around it, he saw that it was not locked to the tree. The chain however was wound as tight as could be around the trunk of the elm, the lock glistening in the evening sun and forced right up upon the trunk itself. That tree weren't going nowhere.

Joe got the key and rectified the situation, stopping occasional to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.

Locking nothing

You see things, obviously, when you take regular walks around the neighborhood. Some stay the same, some change, and some are downright odd.

For weeks now I have passed a house with not one but two sections of fence missing. Why they were removed I don't know, but I'm guessing it was to allow the owners to park their truck inside their yard. Even at that, I don't see why two sections of fence needed removal as the truck clearly could fit through one open section.

Be that as it may, what really puzzles me about this is that there is a gate one standing fence section down from the missing ones. On that gate is one big, honking lock.

I wonder, did someone miss a memo? What's the point of a very sturdy lock on a gate with a wide open yard? Oh, maybe there is some reasonable explanation. But it's more fun to presume it's stupidity, isn't?

Be honest. It is, isn't it? And hey, maybe it is stupidity after all.