A pair of them: one for the side gate, one for the driveway gate hardly ever opened except when guests arrived in more than two cars; or when the city services truck came through the road in back to snake the sewer line. Neither happened very often. The side gate, however, was opened and closed every day, at sunup and sundown, to allow access to the meter readers and the guys who trimmed the grass every three weeks or so. The old padlocks were scaled with rust and had to be thrown away. They were almost exactly like the new ones except for the one thing they didn’t have: a little rubber window that could slide over the keyhole itself. Whoever came up with that must have been a thoughtful kind of person.
What do you do with
a thing fallen out of use?
Its name overtakes it.