A Less Lucky Day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A few days ago I got locked out of the house. It’s like a tradition, getting locked out of the new house while the boys sleep. In the last house I got locked out twice, both times while Soupo was taking his nap. This time I get myself locked out while he and Katcha are both still sleeping. It was a huge waste of their sleeping time, me being locked out of the house.

It wasn’t my fault! Really!

OK, it WAS my fault. All the way around, it was my fault. I let the dogs out first thing in the morning. Then I get breakfast. (Generic Lucky Charms) Then I let the dogs in. Only they didn’t want to come in. They wanted to bark like maniacs. It was too early to let the dogs bark like maniacs, so I went to round them up. Nicki (the Sheltie) was easy. She was right by the porch. So I got her in, no problem. Lucy (the Jack Russell) though… she was around the corner of the house where I couldn’t see her. And if I can’t see her, I don’t know she’s ignoring me. That’s what she thinks anyway. So I head out into the yard so I can call her in. But before I go, I pull the door shut. I don’t want bugs to come in.

Right after we moved in I changed the deadbolts and handles on the front door and the back door. The new handles are real nice. AND they all take the same key. How convenient is that? The new handles also have this safety feature. They’ll open from the inside even if the door is locked. That way, if you have a fire in the middle of the night and your doors are locked, you can just open them anyway without fumbling for the lock and you won’t burn to death. A very handy feature if you want to avoid fiery death in the night. (We also have smoke alarms and fire extinguishers (A, B & C) all over the place.) You just have to check the outside handle when you go out to make sure it’s not locked if you want back in again.

I DID check the handle on my way out to get Lucy. I just checked the INSIDE handle. Which opens whether it’s locked or not. (Remember? I just said.) Then I pulled the door shut so bugs wouldn’t get in. Then I got Lucy. Then I realized I was screwed. Locked out of my house.

The first thing I did was swear. Then I go around front to be sure that door is locked. The Little Woman might have forgotten to lock it when she went to work. No soap. But while I’m there, I’ll see if I forgot to lock my car doors. If I can get in my car, I’ll just hit the clicker and open the garage door and go in that way. Well, the car door’s unlocked. But I remembered to bring the clicker in with me yesterday. (Like I always do. Sheesh.) It’s just good common sense. What if someone broke into my car? Then they could get right into the house by pushing the clicker. Who knows the terror that could come of that?

I also checked the door into the garage, but it was locked too.

So I’m locked out of my house.

Not extra tragic. I have two boys that can open the door and let me in. I just have to wake them up first. So I commence ringing the doorbell and pounding on the front door. For a real long time.

Nothing.

So I go back to the back door and pound on it some.

Nothing.

Back to the front so I can use the doorbell. Again, nothing.

All this time Nicki’s barking insanely. But she’s dumb and can’t open the door. Stupid, stupid dog.

Back to the back door.

The way the house is built, you walk in to the living room through the front door and can walk straight back to the kitchen/ dining area. You also have the choice of going up half a flight of stairs to the bedrooms, or down half a flight of stairs to the family room. A split or tri-level. Whatever you want to call it. The point is, I can reach up and whack the window right by Soupo’s head. Maybe this will wake him up. Then he’ll let me in.

So there was a lot of whacking of the window, knocking on the back door, more knocking on the window, going around front and knocking on the front door whilst ringing the heck out of the doorbell. All the while, Nicki’s going ballistic. Does this phase Soupo? No.

Back to the back of the house I whack the window for all I’m worth. And I see the blind part. Soupo’s up now. Looking at me. I yell through his closed window to go open the door. He does.

“Did you hear me knocking?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear me ringing the doorbell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear me knocking some more?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear Nicki barking?”
“Yes.”
“The window. Did you hear me knocking on the window?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you answer any of that?”
“I dunno.”
He’s only six, but still!

All in all I was locked out of the house for a half an hour. Maybe 45 minutes. And my hand hurt from all the knocking.

In other news, Colin Mochrie does the voice of Two on “Seven Little Monsters”. Check your PBS listings. (The downside is “Seven Little Monsters” is bundled with “The Berenstain Bears” and that show just sucks.)
-Rue.

2

Oh. I should probably say. We’re on vacation this week. We might do some stuff, but I can’t say. What it comes down to is I won’t be around, like, regularly. So play quietly amongst yourselves. I’ll pop in from time to time just to check up on you.

So now you know.
-Rue. (slack assed)

3

Eeek … that doesn’t sound like fun!

We had those door knobs at my old house though and I kind of miss them except if we still had them my daughter would be out the front door every five minutes.

Enjoy your vacation though :slight_smile:

4

Oh andRue will be proud to know that I’ve been merrily refreshing for the last 2 and a half hours as no Monday is complete without his MMP :slight_smile:

And this week I realized last weeks dream and was the first non-Rue post in the MMP!

5

Ow. That’s really annoying, isn’t it? I hate it when that happens. In fact, the last time it happened to me it was for the exact same reason. Not that that’s any big revelation or anything. I’m just sayin’.

I’m glad you got back in without breaking anything. I didn’t.

6

Being locked out sucks a LOT. Especially if there’s no one to let you in. Like, I’ve never been locked out of my car, but I bet it would be lousy, because usually, when you lock yourself out of your car, there’s no one in it. Maybe not always, but usually.

It’s different with your house, though, cause all your stuff’s in your house, and you live there. Unlike your car. Though I guess some people might live in their cars, and for them, getting locked out of their cars is like getting locked out of their houses. Only worse, cause they live in a car to start with, which is kind of unfortunate.

I’ve been locked out of houses a few times. Once I had to put my fist through the window to get in. Well, I didn’t HAVE to. I could have waited until my housemates got home. But I was in a bad mood, and feeling destructive, so I busted the window. Though it was already partly broken to begin with (just not broken enough for me to reach the lock), so I didn’t feel guilty about it or anything.

The other times I’ve locked myself out, I’ve always been able to open the window from the outside and climb in. I’m a little self-conscious about doing that when the neighbors might see me, so I try to do it quickly. Probably looks even funnier to see someone hurriedly pulling out a screen and opening a window, and then leaping up over the sill like she’s trying to break the land speed record for B&E. But I don’t know, 'cause I’ve never watched anyone else do it.

No one ever called the police on me. I guess I look unsuspicious.

7

Psh. You waited? The last time I got locked out of the house I took my bad-assed Dewalt drill and drilled through the lock on the sliding glass door to get in.

Waiting. Sheesh.

I gonna go play quietly with myself now.

8

Rue, darlin’, here’s a special tip just for you from me - get one of those garage door openers with the keypad mounted on the house. That way, you can just punch your magical numbers and get in. As long as there’s no power outage, that is. It’s safer than hiding a key and easier on the hand than beating on the doors and windows.

I can’t get locked out of the front door accidentally because we’ve just got the deadbolt there. And we frequently leave the back door unlocked - people are reluctant to enter a yard with a dog present, so that worked. We were going to put in one of the openers with the keypad (we had one in our last house and loved it) but since we’re selling the house, that ain’t gonna happen here.

On another note, you need to coordinate your vacations with me. You need to take off the same time I do so I don’t have a double dose of Rue withdrawal. I figure that’s the least you can do for your #1 Special Friend and Secret Stalker. Have your people call my people.

:smiley:

9

You know, Rue, I’m really happy you brought out that little tidbit on Colin. I think he’s terrific, and have always wanted him to have his own show, or at least something besides “Whose Line,” which is a terrific show, don’t get me wrong, but I would like to see my favorite Canadian do something else. Must have coffee now.

  • lighting(if we keep going with the Colin talk, this may be the first MMP that gets moved to another forum)tool
10

Rue, why you encourage welby to play with himself? He doesn’t need encouragement, and there are other people in this thread who don’t need the mental image.

Aargh.

:smiley:

11

I’m getting a lot of bad mental images of welby today.

When he’s not playing with himself (quietly, thank God), he’s playing with poison ivy and power tools.

I couldn’t miss this week, could I? Oh no, it had to be last week.

12

Lissla, maybe it had something to do with this thread. :eek: But I agree about not needing that mental image…

13

Most of my friends (and even people who I don’t consider friends) will tell you that in many ways I am terribly disorganized. I have misplaced bills, my checkbook, books I am in the middle of reading, and other things I don’t even want to think about. However, I have never locked myself out of any of my residences because for some reason I never get dressed without putting my keys in my pocket. I don’t own a single pair of pants, even my grungiest lay-around-the-house shorts and sweats, that don’t have at least one pocket for that purpose. I’m almost as obsessive about carrying my wallet even when I have no plans to leave the house.

14

Well, in fairness, Rue didn’t encourage him; Welby volunteered.

15

This is my favorite part!

I have a worker just like that! (But he’s in his 50s)

16

Awwwww… poor Rue! I like Soupo’s answer though. Heeheehee. I’ve never locked myself out of the house. I have locked my keys in the car twice. Both times it was pouring down rain and I was dealing with an umbrella. That’s why I hate umbrellas.

Speaking of rain, it rained a lot this weekend. I got to spend maybe one hour by the pool! Grrrrrrrrr… Saturday afternoon was nice and sunny, but of course I had to be at a fund raiser for work. Right now it’s all nice and sunny, but I have to be at work. And on top of all that I have a vision of welby with itchy nipples playing with himself with a DeWalt drill. This is nop a pretty image to have in my head.

-swampbear (now where did I put that brain bleach?)

17

Oh me oh my. Did I say with myself. I meant to say by myself.

Sorry about that.

Of course, now that it’s been mentioned . . .

18

I just realized that if I locked myself out of my house, there would be nobody to let me in–ever! No spouse, no kids, no super-intelligent pet. And I have a detached garage so no help there. I suppose I could give a key to my neighbor, but what if I lock myself out ehen she’s not home? Or late at night? I could hide a key in my yard, but what if someone found it? I mean, keys are not great mysteries, and it would be pretty easy to figure out that the key hidden in the garden opened the door to the house. Maybe if I hid the key to the garage, and then hid the house key somewhere in the garage? But, although the stranger that found the hidden key might give up when it didn’t open the house door, it is just as likely that he (or she, I’m an equal-opportunity potential victim) would try the garage and even if he or she didn’t then find the house key (because it would be hidden in the garage, not just lying around), he or she could get into my car, (which I don’t lock because it’s locked in my garage so why bother) and maybe steal it or stuff out of it. He or she could steal stuff from my garage as well, but there’s not much of value in there so I’m not going to obsess about that. This was not an issue when I lived in an apartment. First off, the doors wouldn’t lock without a key, so you couldn’t lock yourself out, and if the door would lock without a key, there was always an apartment manager I could call. It might cost me money to call after hours, but at least there was someone to call. Now that I’m a homeowner, I feel so alone. I could be locked out and have no one to call. No one would know. No one would care.

Great, now I’m in a lousy mood and still obsessing over how to hide a key so I won’t be locked out of my house. In the rain, probably.

19

Umm, Kallessa? Relax, honey. That’s what locksmiths are for. Some of them even have emergency after-hours numbers in case you are locked out before or after business hours.

Now, how to convince them you actually live there and are not breaking in, that I don’t know. :slight_smile:

20

When my mother locked herself out and needed to call a locksmith she told him not to open the door after he unlocked it or the dog might eat him. Afterwards she was supposed to go in and get her license to prove she lived there. When she got into the house and the dog (who was doing his best Cujo impersonation for the locksmith as he unlocked stuff) was busy wagging his tail and sniffing her, the locksmith told her that was all the proof he needed :slight_smile: