For Real

Oh, boy. It’s only 9:00, and I’m already fed up with myself.

About a month ago, I took our car to the shop, got a ride back home in the mechanic’s shuttle, and discovered that I had locked myself out of the house. I don’t generally carry a house key, because I generally enter through the garage. I use the garage remote on the car. Without the car, I didn’t have a way to get in. Oh, and I also forgot my phone that day, so I was fresh out of luck. I went to our dear neighbor’s house, told my sad story, and called R.J. to come let me in. We briefly had two cars in our possession at that time, so he could drive home from work to do that. Yes, I was embarrassed and unhappy that I had done something so dumb.

Shortly after that incident, we went through a bag of unsorted keys at our house. Well, when I say we, I mean R.J. did. He is so good at the details, and that was not a task I wanted to do. He found me a house key, so I wouldn’t have the problem of being locked out of the house again. I put it on my key chain and was ready to go.

Fast forward to this morning. I took the car in to the shop again and got dropped off by the shuttle again. I went to the door, and it was only then that I realized that I had a key to the door handle, not the deadbolt. It was the deadbolt that was locked, so for the second time in about a month, I was locked out of my own house. You guessed it. My freshly charged phone was sitting on the table by my chair in the house, not in my purse where I needed it.

I decided to do penance for being so stupid. Weeding our out-of -control yard was on my list of things to do today anyway, so I attempted to start that task. It would have been easier with the gardening tools that were locked safely in the garage, but there were some things I could do. Oh, and then I found a child’s plastic spade in a back garden, for some unknown reason. It worked a bit to help get out a few more weeds. When I finished most of what I could do with vastly inadequate tools, I paced around the house again, once again trying every key that I knew wouldn’t work, just in case.

I was determined NOT to knock on my neighbors’ doors before 9:00 am, or before seeing them come out of their houses. This is one of the disadvantages of locking yourself out of the house before 8:00 in the morning – you have to figure out knocking-on-the-door etiquette, and you have to do that without the aid of the internet. 9:00 seemed reasonable to me.

In the end, I got impatient. I broke into my own home. I figured out how to pop out one of our screens, pushed open the window, and climbed in. This was in my front yard, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the police pull up to our house sometime soon to investigate a home invasion.

It’s 9:30 now, and if ever there were a day for a second cup of chai, this is it. I just want you all to know that if you ever do something that you consider phenomenally stupid, and you need help, I'm your gal. Call me. I understand, and I will come to your assistance, provided I'm not locked out of my house or car. That is all.