Practical Reasons to Pick Locks

Sometime last year I was unfortunate enough to have my room mate lock me out of the room. I had just gone to the gym and had forgotten my keys and meanwhile he had left campus for the weekend!  I called Campus Security to come open my lock (something I hate doing as they charge $10 a pop) and then went to the floor lounge to wait.  I plopped down on the couch and started flipping through channels on the TV and stopped on a James Bond flick.  During the few minutes that I was watching, Bond produced a seemingly mundane credit card and with a quick motion it became a lock pick!  A few moments later, he had unlocked a door to a room that I'm sure wasn't his.

 However, the idea of how effortlessly he had bypassed the same obstacle that now stood between me and my Gatorade in my dorm room mini-fridge made me think, "Well, I'm no super-spy, but how hard could it be?"  My roommate and I don't keep a spare key hidden, we live in a dorm after all and there are very few places to hide a key in a dorm hallway.  If I carried a set of lock picks in my bag, I could open my door whenever I forgot my keys!  So I bought a simple pick set on the internet and a week later I'm teaching myself the basics of lock picking.  

Since I bought my lock pick set I've only had real need to use them once.  A friend of mine had locked herself out of her dorm and didn't want to pay the $10, so she called me up instead.  Eager to test my new skills I leapt at the opportunity.  I was a bit nervous being the first time I had an audience and actual pressure to pick a lock, but in a minute or so I heard the distinctive *CLICK* as the final pin set and the barrel rotated!   Thinking back now, I should have charged!  

Despite how infrequently I've needed to use the set, it does give me some sort of feeling of security and confidence in knowing that if I do lock myself out, I'm not doomed.  At home, instead of having to call a locksmith and pay more than $50, a $30 lock pick set would quickly pay for itself after its first use.