The Bunker

I like "Mystery Keys and Pills." It sounds like the start of a great novel... especially if the keys fit any of the cars on the street out front. If I were you, I'd just pop the pills and head out.

That sounds like fun, but I don't have enough pills for my friends. What fun is that? After shoveling snow for an hour and a half yesterday, I was hoping for a Flexeril, but it looks like I'm out of luck. I figured out what they are and one is an Advil, the other is a Ditropan XL.

As for the key, the only marking is "GERMANY". I checked all 20 locks on the house and it doesn't fit any of them. Maybe it's for the missing gun cabinet. (only missing because I'm sure he had one and there isn't one now.)

Maybe it's a key to the country Germany.

The Allies were looking everywhere for that during the war.

-M

The unidentified painted object is a ship. We had one in Maine that looked a bit like that, but brass (not painted), and lifted up to function as a small door knocker. Yours looks too flat for that, though.

It is a ship! We're thinking about soaking it in mineral spirits so we can read the text. I believe the last word is "radio", which kinda makes sense since the previous owner was a short wave radio nut, but what the heck does a ship have to do with short wave radio? Maybe it's an old brand symbol?

Funny -- I tried playing around in photoshop with the picture to see if I could read the text. I agree that the last word looks like 'radio' but I couldn't make anything else out. It'll be interesting to hear wha tyou find out.

Tip for removing paint from metal from my mother who restores houses for fun: Boil in water and then scrub with very, very fine steel wool (you can get this in the hardwarem store). The only time this is not a good idea is when the metal is attached to glass door knobs (can crack in the boiling water).

Thanks for the advice! Do you know if that method works on oil based paint? They painted every door knob in the house around 4 times, so I'm guessing the institutional green on the bottom and maybe the peach layer are oil+lead. (Who the hell paints their doorknobs to match the room?)

Yes, it definitely works on oil-based paint -- I have an old house, so I have lots of oil-based paint and have stripped countless surfaces... someone painted a wall sconce! After you get the paint off, you can polish to whatever brightness you want, then after you let them darken to whatever patina you prefer, you can cover with a substance that stops them from getting darker so you don't have to polish anymore (if you're interested, I'll ask my mom -- I always forget what it's called). BTW, LAZY people paint the doorknobs. I'm so hostile toward the jackasses who painted all the metal and painted over multiple layers of wallpaper in my house. Add a little roof leak to the mix and viola! Now walls look bubbly due to stripping wallpaper covered by layers of paint!. Bastards!