Broken Lock

It's weird how things are working fine one moment, and then the next...its broken. Without any signs of anything going wrong.

I had a coworker do the bedding changes.
As finally I had a coworker who came in early enough that I could have them do the bedding changes and still expect to have them done about the time the store opens.

-For the past week that hasn't really happened, so I've had to clean the animal cages while my coworkers open up the rest of the department.

And they'd been doing really good.
However....somewhere near the end of their tasks.
One of the locks to keep customers from walking off with our animals....
Failed.

It wouldn't turn.
It wouldn't lock or unlock.
Nothing.
It wouldn't work for my key or hers.

Of course, if something stops working....
The automatic response is to come find me and have me figure out a solution instead of them trying other solutions first.

It had been noted by my coworker that the latch -that locks the cages- was loose.
So I thought, it basically needed to just be tightened right?
Which meant I needed to find a screw driver to tighten the screw on the lock and all would be good.
I went and found a screw driver.
Tightened the loose screw.
And yah, you guessed it.
The lock didn't work.

My next thought was to take apart the lock, But I wasn't sure if that would solve the problem either.
So I called Sirch over to look at the lock, as he's a bit of a fix it guy himself.
He tried his key, and the lock didn't work for him either.
So he figured that the lock had gone bad. -Not a surprise, it is an old store.
And that we needed to replace it.
So off we went in search of another lock.
Found one.
Took apart the old one.
And my manager had the thought of "Well maybe I could fix it if I greased it up a bit."
However, when he took the lock apart, and then fit it back together again, trying a brand new key in it, and then our older keys -which apparently are really worn down.-
The lock was once again working fine.
O.o

He got called away just then,
So I figured I would finish putting the lock back together.
And try the keys.
Guess what?
Yah.
Once the old lock was back together, all the keys worked just fine in it.

My guess is....
That since we were working on the reptile bedding change, and that involves placing dirt in the bottom of the tropical reptile cages. That possibly a bit of debris got caught inside the lock, or maybe on my coworker's key, and jammed up the lock.
And the way to fix it....was to just take it apart and put it back together again.

*shakes head*
So weird.
but at least we didn't need to get a new lock right? :)

-Sarnic Dirchi