Writers Workshop Thursday - Locked Out

Between my first marriage and my current marriage I dated a guy named Jerry. As it turns out, pretty much everything Jerry told me was a big, fat lie but he did come in handy when I got locked out.

He had shown up with very little notice...supposedly he traveled a lot for work (snort and also eye roll)...and since this was before I had gotten suspicious, I was so excited that I left the house with him without my keys. My brother and my friend Tina were living with me, so I wasn't too worried about getting back into my house when I got home. I had to work the next day, he never had more than a few hours free when I saw him, so we weren't out very late.

He pulled into my driveway and the house was dark.

Whoops.

My brother was living in the bedroom to the left of the front door and was constantly complaining about how he couldn't sleep: the streetlight outside was too bright, someone was walking around in the kitchen, my work pager would go off (which was fair..that thing went off all the time at all hours), because there were too many cars going up and down the street...you name it.

So I figured that the doorbell and some pretty doggone insistent knocking would wake him up. It wasn't even 11 pm, after all, and he was such a 'light sleeper'.

Well, until I locked myself out and needed him to wake up and let me in.

After about 15 minutes of trying to rouse someone, anyone, we started looking for another way in.

All my windows had screens on them and I really didn't want to destroy a screen or break a window to get in.   We tried the credit card to jimmy the lock, but that didn't work either. Especially since whomever locked up had thrown the deadbolt. I would have called, but my cell phone was in the house...with my keys, my id, and the garage door opener.

Perfection.

Finally, Jerry was like, "look..do you want me to get you in the house?" And of course I was all, "well, yeah!" and expecting a rock or a boot to meet one of my windows. He bends over to look at the living room window. There was a rubber strip that pressed the screen into the metal frame. Jerry took his car key out and dug the rubber strip out and peeled back the screen.

Well, holy breaking and entering Batman! That took all of six seconds. Then he took his credit card and slid it in the very tiny space where the upper and lower window met. A quick flick of the wrist and then a repeat on the second lock and voila! The window was unlocked and we slid it right up.

I took off my shoes and threw them as loudly as I could into the living room, still plenty ticked off that two people were in my house and wouldn't/couldn't wake up to let me in. Not that my shoe throwing had any effect at all in the rousing sleeping residents arena.  Then I hiked up the dress I was wearing like the lady I am and climbed through my window.

Fabulous.

Getting into my well-locked house took Jerry less than 3 minutes and with the exception of my dramatic shoe throwing, door pounding, window knocking, doorbell ringing and some pretty creative cursing, was entirely silent.

Sobering, isn't it?

And yes, I still bring up this night whenever my brother dares to mention that he's a light sleeper.