Page 1 of 1

The Safe Cracker

PostPosted: 2008-12-28 00:59:16
by Charles Chandler
Dad once told a story of a time when he was in the Coast Guard, standing watch late at night, and bored out of his mind. So he thought he would amuse himself by attempting to crack the safe in the commander's office. He started spinning the knob, carefully so that he might feel the tumblers turning. This he could not discern, but much to his surprise, after half a revolution the safe opened. The commander had apparently spun the first set of numbers, so that it could be easily opened the next time. So his idle curiosity turned to panic, because now, he had to learn the combination, so he could reset it the way it was before, or else the commander would figure out that whoever was on watch that night had opened it, and figuring out who that was would not have been hard. Fortunately, inside the safe were the personnel records, including the commander's, from which he derived the commander's birthday, which just happened to be the combination to the safe.

Dad never tried that again.