Step 1: Rent a beach house with a front door (3 locks) and a backdoor (1.5 locks). The half lock is a latch that doesn’t fit into the hole…..drilled an inch higher than the latch. The front door is Fort Knox. The backdoor is Knots Berry Farm – “Step Right Up Folks!! We got everything from dive gear to camera equipment. NO WAITING.” 
Step 2: Rent a beach house from a Honduran single mom (property manager) with two marvelous children who lives in a house her father built next to the abandoned church he built to start his own congregation. Her father is a Baptist, but the resort nearby added a bar, and there’s a Honduran law that prohibits churches to operate within a specific number of meters from a bar. Bad for both businesses, presumably.
Step 3: During the rental walkthrough, foolishly volunteer to fortify the cottage with a deadbolt lock on the backdoor. Boast naively, “it’ll take 20 minutes. No problema.”
Step 4: Feel the hook sink. “OK, Mista Matt (that’s what Teralyn, the property manage, calls me). I da know xactly what a buy, doe.”
Step 5: Seal your fate. “No worries, Teralyn, I’ll go with you and we’ll buy the lock and some other supplies together.”
Step 6: Clear your schedule for a few days. Trust me.
Step 7: Show up at Teralyn’s house at the appointed time (9am). Look away as she answers the door in a towel. “I be right witch you. Just gotouta da shower, ya see.” Yes, I saw too much.
Step 8: Walk to West End to catch a cab. Pass Teralyn’s car parked in the driveway.
Step 9: Walk past several cabs to a spot the locals use. “Doze utta cabbies rip you off. Day for da tourists.”
Step 10: Proceed to Coxen Hole by making more stops than a mailman. Fill the Toyota Corola with an assortment of roadside Roatanians who are all going somewhere in no apparent hurry. Perhaps they needed a new deadbolt lock on a Wednesday, and cleared their schedule for a few days.
Step 11: Go to the Serrano Industrial Supply store in Coxen Hole. Ask for help in Spanglish. “Como se dice deadbolt lock para un door at Playa House?” Stand in place while young female worker scurries away and brings back a translator. Repeat Spanglish. Blush when both young female and translator giggle.
Step 12: Suck up pride and do hardware store charades. Do very poor sound effects while simulating turning a key. Repeat again and again as the young pair of employees takes you down every aisle in the store pointing at things they think you want.
Step 13: Exasperated, head for the exit only to find the deadbolt locks hanging over the doorway. Vainly attempt to reach the conveniently located 9 foot high product display as the young employees simulate your hardware store charades to the delight and laughter of the onlookers.
Step 14: Elusive lock in hand, meet Teralyn at the checkout counter. Wait patiently as counter girl itemizes our basket in hand-writing, and totals the bill on a calculator. After 15 minutes, grab the shopping bag and head for the door. Get stopped by the security guard for attempted robbery. Meet Teralyn at the “payment” counter, and endure more laughter from the onlookers.
Step 15: Depart Serrano’s and glance at watch. 12:30pm. Three and a half hours, and the coveted lock is in hand. To be safe, allocate 4 hours.
Step 16: Attempt to hail a cab only to hear Terralyn say, “Mista Matt, I goyna say hi to ma cousin dare cross da road. OK?” Stutter a lame reply, like “no problema” and slump across the road behind her.
Step 17: Listen to the recent family history of two female Honduran cousins. Grind teeth as one week of history is broken down into 5 minute intervals, and recited with joy and laughter. Be thankful they are not laughing at you….or so you think.
Step 18: Hail a cab, repeat random roadside pickups, and return to West End at 2pm. Prepare yourself for construction work. Inquire with Teralyn about some tools – screw drivers, drills, drill bits, a hammer, a chisel, and the like. “Oh, Mista Matt, I gotta tools.” Ask if you can have them. “Sure, I get ‘em from my brother today.”
Step 19: Kiss workday #1 goodbye. Find wife, and explain why we have to stand guard at the beach house with the inviting backdoor. Endure wife’s look. Take the cold dagger and shiver because you realize how long this project might actually take. Wives do not suffer in silence.
Step 20: Wake at 5am on Day 2. Lock day. Beam with confidence. Attempt to track down Teralyn to get the tools. Fail again and again. Finally find her at 2pm, at her father’s house a few hundred feet away from her house. Learn that the tools are, in fact, at her house, and she’ll gladly bring them em by later. At 8pm, return to father’s house, and miraculously gain possession of the tools under the light of the half-moon.
Step 21: Return to beach house for “easy assembly” (as stated on the packaging). Read instructions carefully, and realize that the three drill bits that Teralyn’s brother loaned you are either the wrong size or broken or both. Do not panic. Improvise.
Step 22: The directions say to use a 2-inch hole saw. Your 2-inch hole saw is from World War II, is missing a vital piece, and is duller than a butter knife. Attempt to use it anyway. Have wife hold the door securely as you repeatedly scratch and claw the door with the butter-hole-saw.
Step 23: Switch to the 1.5-inch drill bit, and drill a hole that is too small for the lock assembly. Twist, turn and otherwise contort the drill to gouge a bigger hole. Twist wrist when the bit catches. Curse loudly. Repeat.
Step 24: Put down drill and think. After 15 minutes of drilling, the hole is still too small. Ask wife for ideas. Heed her suggestion to chisel out the hole. Lacking a chisel, opt for a bent screw driver. Lacking a hammer, opt for the only steel in the storage shed – a pick axe. Have wife secure door with hands and feet, put bent flat head screw driver in place, and start swinging the pick axe. Narrowly avoid hitting wife’s hands, face and other body parts.
Step 25: Get the hole somewhat large enough. Turn focus to latch hole. Use ¾” drill bit to forge a 1” hole. Twist, turn, contort, and sweat. Get it close (enough) and attempt to slide the latch into the hole. Fail. Try again. Fail. Curse loudly. Use screw driver and pick axe to bore larger hole. On fourth swing, narrowly miss wife’s forehead with pick axe. Silent note to self: reevaluate upping life insurance on wife to $2M.
Step 26: Attempt to push the latch through the hole. Have it barely stick in the hole. Use the pick axe to force it into place. On the third swing, break the latch. Curse loud enough to wake the entire island.
Step 27: Take a beer break. You will need to buy a new lock in Coxen Hole, and it’s too late to go at night.
Step 28: Day 3 of the deadbolt lock assembly. At 7am, you and your wife take a taxi to Coxen Hole. Upon arrival to town, realize that you cannot remember the name of the hardware store, where it’s located, or how to say “hardware” in Spanish. Exude confidence so as to not alarm wife. Have cab driver take you through town, and look for familiar landmarks. After second circuit through town, and questions that you cannot answer from your wife, have the cabbie drop you off at the opening of a dark alley. Whither under glare of your wife. Try not to panic.
Step 29: Do some non-hardware shopping at HB Warren’s, and ask the cashiers in Spanglish-charades for the location of the hardware store. Be prepared to hear “no se…..no comprende.” Oh no!!
Step 30: Stop a police man, and ask for help. Miraculously, receive help in spades. Serrano Industrial (duh, now you will remember the name after the kind policeman says it) is just down the main street a mile or so. Start hoofing it. The walk will somewhat relieve your wife’s stress. Reenter Serrano Industrial, try to avoid ridiculing eye contact with the help staff, find a step ladder, pull down another deadbolt lock, locate a 1” drill bit, go to the register counter, and finally to the payment counter.
Step 31: Return to beach house, drill correct sized 1” hole for latch, and matching hole in the door frame. Replace the pick axe with a lava rock from the yard, and grab the screw driver. Hack away at the door and door frame to create strike box areas. Slide latch, cover plates into place, and screw together using a rusted, stripped, phillips-head screw driver. Using wood screws, attach both strike boxes. Test lock. Fail test. Ask wife to kill you with the pick axe.
Step 32: Disassemble lock assembly. Dissect the problem, and reassemble. Strip the wood screw hole for one of the strike boxes. Keep moving forward - finishing the project is more important that quality workmanship. Test again. EUREKA, it works. Time of completion: 11:22am, Day 3. Total elapsed time to assembly one friggin’, simple deadbolt lock = 3 Days, 2 hours, 22 minutes.
No problema……oye.
Step 2: Rent a beach house from a Honduran single mom (property manager) with two marvelous children who lives in a house her father built next to the abandoned church he built to start his own congregation. Her father is a Baptist, but the resort nearby added a bar, and there’s a Honduran law that prohibits churches to operate within a specific number of meters from a bar. Bad for both businesses, presumably.
Step 3: During the rental walkthrough, foolishly volunteer to fortify the cottage with a deadbolt lock on the backdoor. Boast naively, “it’ll take 20 minutes. No problema.”
Step 4: Feel the hook sink. “OK, Mista Matt (that’s what Teralyn, the property manage, calls me). I da know xactly what a buy, doe.”
Step 5: Seal your fate. “No worries, Teralyn, I’ll go with you and we’ll buy the lock and some other supplies together.”
Step 6: Clear your schedule for a few days. Trust me.
Step 7: Show up at Teralyn’s house at the appointed time (9am). Look away as she answers the door in a towel. “I be right witch you. Just gotouta da shower, ya see.” Yes, I saw too much.
Step 8: Walk to West End to catch a cab. Pass Teralyn’s car parked in the driveway.
Step 9: Walk past several cabs to a spot the locals use. “Doze utta cabbies rip you off. Day for da tourists.”
Step 10: Proceed to Coxen Hole by making more stops than a mailman. Fill the Toyota Corola with an assortment of roadside Roatanians who are all going somewhere in no apparent hurry. Perhaps they needed a new deadbolt lock on a Wednesday, and cleared their schedule for a few days.
Step 11: Go to the Serrano Industrial Supply store in Coxen Hole. Ask for help in Spanglish. “Como se dice deadbolt lock para un door at Playa House?” Stand in place while young female worker scurries away and brings back a translator. Repeat Spanglish. Blush when both young female and translator giggle.
Step 12: Suck up pride and do hardware store charades. Do very poor sound effects while simulating turning a key. Repeat again and again as the young pair of employees takes you down every aisle in the store pointing at things they think you want.
Step 13: Exasperated, head for the exit only to find the deadbolt locks hanging over the doorway. Vainly attempt to reach the conveniently located 9 foot high product display as the young employees simulate your hardware store charades to the delight and laughter of the onlookers.
Step 14: Elusive lock in hand, meet Teralyn at the checkout counter. Wait patiently as counter girl itemizes our basket in hand-writing, and totals the bill on a calculator. After 15 minutes, grab the shopping bag and head for the door. Get stopped by the security guard for attempted robbery. Meet Teralyn at the “payment” counter, and endure more laughter from the onlookers.
Step 15: Depart Serrano’s and glance at watch. 12:30pm. Three and a half hours, and the coveted lock is in hand. To be safe, allocate 4 hours.
Step 16: Attempt to hail a cab only to hear Terralyn say, “Mista Matt, I goyna say hi to ma cousin dare cross da road. OK?” Stutter a lame reply, like “no problema” and slump across the road behind her.
Step 17: Listen to the recent family history of two female Honduran cousins. Grind teeth as one week of history is broken down into 5 minute intervals, and recited with joy and laughter. Be thankful they are not laughing at you….or so you think.
Step 18: Hail a cab, repeat random roadside pickups, and return to West End at 2pm. Prepare yourself for construction work. Inquire with Teralyn about some tools – screw drivers, drills, drill bits, a hammer, a chisel, and the like. “Oh, Mista Matt, I gotta tools.” Ask if you can have them. “Sure, I get ‘em from my brother today.”
Step 19: Kiss workday #1 goodbye. Find wife, and explain why we have to stand guard at the beach house with the inviting backdoor. Endure wife’s look. Take the cold dagger and shiver because you realize how long this project might actually take. Wives do not suffer in silence.
Step 20: Wake at 5am on Day 2. Lock day. Beam with confidence. Attempt to track down Teralyn to get the tools. Fail again and again. Finally find her at 2pm, at her father’s house a few hundred feet away from her house. Learn that the tools are, in fact, at her house, and she’ll gladly bring them em by later. At 8pm, return to father’s house, and miraculously gain possession of the tools under the light of the half-moon.
Step 21: Return to beach house for “easy assembly” (as stated on the packaging). Read instructions carefully, and realize that the three drill bits that Teralyn’s brother loaned you are either the wrong size or broken or both. Do not panic. Improvise.
Step 22: The directions say to use a 2-inch hole saw. Your 2-inch hole saw is from World War II, is missing a vital piece, and is duller than a butter knife. Attempt to use it anyway. Have wife hold the door securely as you repeatedly scratch and claw the door with the butter-hole-saw.
Step 23: Switch to the 1.5-inch drill bit, and drill a hole that is too small for the lock assembly. Twist, turn and otherwise contort the drill to gouge a bigger hole. Twist wrist when the bit catches. Curse loudly. Repeat.
Step 24: Put down drill and think. After 15 minutes of drilling, the hole is still too small. Ask wife for ideas. Heed her suggestion to chisel out the hole. Lacking a chisel, opt for a bent screw driver. Lacking a hammer, opt for the only steel in the storage shed – a pick axe. Have wife secure door with hands and feet, put bent flat head screw driver in place, and start swinging the pick axe. Narrowly avoid hitting wife’s hands, face and other body parts.
Step 25: Get the hole somewhat large enough. Turn focus to latch hole. Use ¾” drill bit to forge a 1” hole. Twist, turn, contort, and sweat. Get it close (enough) and attempt to slide the latch into the hole. Fail. Try again. Fail. Curse loudly. Use screw driver and pick axe to bore larger hole. On fourth swing, narrowly miss wife’s forehead with pick axe. Silent note to self: reevaluate upping life insurance on wife to $2M.
Step 26: Attempt to push the latch through the hole. Have it barely stick in the hole. Use the pick axe to force it into place. On the third swing, break the latch. Curse loud enough to wake the entire island.
Step 27: Take a beer break. You will need to buy a new lock in Coxen Hole, and it’s too late to go at night.
Step 28: Day 3 of the deadbolt lock assembly. At 7am, you and your wife take a taxi to Coxen Hole. Upon arrival to town, realize that you cannot remember the name of the hardware store, where it’s located, or how to say “hardware” in Spanish. Exude confidence so as to not alarm wife. Have cab driver take you through town, and look for familiar landmarks. After second circuit through town, and questions that you cannot answer from your wife, have the cabbie drop you off at the opening of a dark alley. Whither under glare of your wife. Try not to panic.
Step 29: Do some non-hardware shopping at HB Warren’s, and ask the cashiers in Spanglish-charades for the location of the hardware store. Be prepared to hear “no se…..no comprende.” Oh no!!
Step 30: Stop a police man, and ask for help. Miraculously, receive help in spades. Serrano Industrial (duh, now you will remember the name after the kind policeman says it) is just down the main street a mile or so. Start hoofing it. The walk will somewhat relieve your wife’s stress. Reenter Serrano Industrial, try to avoid ridiculing eye contact with the help staff, find a step ladder, pull down another deadbolt lock, locate a 1” drill bit, go to the register counter, and finally to the payment counter.
Step 31: Return to beach house, drill correct sized 1” hole for latch, and matching hole in the door frame. Replace the pick axe with a lava rock from the yard, and grab the screw driver. Hack away at the door and door frame to create strike box areas. Slide latch, cover plates into place, and screw together using a rusted, stripped, phillips-head screw driver. Using wood screws, attach both strike boxes. Test lock. Fail test. Ask wife to kill you with the pick axe.
Step 32: Disassemble lock assembly. Dissect the problem, and reassemble. Strip the wood screw hole for one of the strike boxes. Keep moving forward - finishing the project is more important that quality workmanship. Test again. EUREKA, it works. Time of completion: 11:22am, Day 3. Total elapsed time to assembly one friggin’, simple deadbolt lock = 3 Days, 2 hours, 22 minutes.
No problema……oye.
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