Well, I’m still a fucking idiot, even if I’m not in the pit anymore.
And to clarify, my husband works for the wife of the man I made break into the house, not the homeowner. So it’s two different families of my son’s best friends have been shown my idiocy, not just one.
Thank God they don’t have that burglar alarm anymore.
Caricci, how is this even your fault? They said they’d leave a key with the neighbor, and didn’t. Their fault. Not yours. So There. 
A few years back, my sister was housesitting for a family with seven cats. These were indoor/outdoor cats, and one didn’t come back after she’d let him out. Until late that night, when it had started to pour rain, whereupon it cried and clawed at the back door desperate to get in.
So Cathy got up to let the poor thing in. Of course, the second she opened the door the cat saw it was a ‘stranger’ and backed away. After coaxing a few minutes, Cathy decided she’d just step out and grab the cat…so what if she got a little wet?
Of course, she hadn’t planned on slipping on the wet back porch. And letting go of the back door, which promptly swung shut and latched.
Leaving my sister standing on the porch, in the rain, wearing nothing but a nightie.
Solving that little dilemma ended up involving a broken window, a very suspicious elderly neighbor, the police, and phone calls to Brazil…
You just lost the key while housesitting and feeding the neighbour’s cat. You didn’t lose the cat.
(We found him within fifteen minutes after hollering up and down the neighbourhood, but still. ;))
I believe most people have had this sort of thing occur. My latest was when I agreed to take care of my son’s car while he was away in the Navy. I was to “Exercize” the vehicle once a week to keep the lubricants flowing. A couple laps around the block.
One winter day I started the car up and went back into the house while it warmed up. Yup, I had locked the keys in it, engine running. Ever try to get a locksmith on superbowl Sunday? By some miracle one locksmith agreed to come out at halftime, but warned it was not going to be cheap. By a second miracle the smith turned out to be a highschool friend of my wife, and he only charged $20. I expected to pay a lot more, like in the hundred dollar range, not the “Normal business hours” rate.
A part of being a mere mortal.
I was leaving for work early one morning so I could drop our dog off at the vet hospital by my office for her spaying. I must have been a little nervous for her, because I put her in her bed on the passenger seat, tossed in my purse and keys, and then closed the passenger door to walk around to the driver’s side and get in.
Of course I locked the door.
I locked the dog, the purse, my phone in my purse and my keys in the car. I had one emergency key hidden in the garden shed so I could get in the house. But we don’t have a landline.
I had to get the emergency key, get the in the house, boot up the computer and send my husband a text message (or 10) from the web to his phone.
Boy, was he mad (he works about 40 minutes away) when he came to rescue me. (He has the second set of car keys).
Especially since it wasn’t the first time I locked my keys, purse, and phone in the car and myself out.
I had to buy him a complete set of Star Trek movie DVDs as a thank you honey gift.
I made three sets of spare keys for the car after that to put in the Secret Hiding Place and to keep at the office and to put in a hide-a-key thingee. Of course, as soon as I’d had the three extra sets, the car finally needed more repairs than was worth it and I got a new car.
So I have the new car now, and extra ignition keys are special these days, doncha know, and you can get duplicates, but they open the doors and trunk but don’t start the ignition. $100 for ignition-starting keys.
So the kinda large extra key that at least opens the door has a new place–in my bra. Every single day. Without fail. I tuck it into my bra. If I leave the house, the key is tucked into my bra with me.
So far, I haven’t needed it… But just in case. In my bra.
Yes, sometimes it looks like I have three nipples, but that’s the cost of being proved to be a moron.
I had a weird animal feeding issue at a friends house in NC. I knew how to use the alarm- I actually lived there for a month or so, so I figured no problem! She gave me the backdoor key, as that’s the only one she had extra. I went over, walked into the house, disarmed the alarm, no problem. So I thought. The phone rang, but I ignored it and let the voicemail pick up. as I figured it was just someone leaving them a message.
Did a quick check on the cats, fed them, and headed out. Armed the alarm, locked the door behind me, left. A minute later my phone rang and it was my friend asking what happened and was I just at the house. I said yes and she was like “Well, OMG, the alarm went off and the company called but no one answered and the cops are on the way!” WTF??? So she called them back, squared it all away and I figured I just must have screwed something up.
Lather, rinse, repeat the very next freaking day, only this time I answered the phone and gave the code. I got pissed then because I know I did everything right. I called the alarm company and since I had the passwords, they helped me out. Turns out when the alarm was installed a year ago, they didn’t OK the back door as a proper point of entry. My opening it set off the same alarm that breaking a window would have. When they installed it, one of them told the company “OH, we never use that to come in and out when the alarm is on!” Der. So after all that I was at least vindicated, but what a pain in the ass! The whole time my friend must have thought I was a total idiot and couldn’t punch in a 4 digit code.
I’ve locked myself out of cars three times, usually in the first month or so I’ve driven them: once while using my parents’ car (shortly after I got my license), and once each for the first two cars I bought. And one of latter two was while parked at a gas pump (car NOT running, thank goodness). Now I keep spare car keys in my wallet.
I did this once in my own apartment. I didn’t jump because I’m on the 12th floor.
Cue a few minutes of feeling like a TOTAL idiot. Then I thought to try to lift the sliding door out of the bottom track. Luckily, I was able to move it just enough to dislodge the stick and get the door open.
This is why I only use the deadbolt. That way I can’t lock myself out. Otherwise, I would.
Those things are a joke. All you have to do is…
Nevermind. I’ve probably already said too much.
So, the third nipple does denote wisdom…
Ok, we are over 30 posts into the thread and we still haven’t gotten the full story of the Beta fish who wouldn’t die but did. Pretty please?
Sorry, I was away for the weekend. Thanks for joining me in your tales of locked out woe. It does make me feel better.
The beta fish, whose name was Freud, was adopted by me from a graduating student at the college where I work at the end of the 2005 Spring semester. She brought it to me on a really cold May day and it was all pale from having low body temperature. We thought it might be dead then but it wasn’t. The student told me that it would likely die soon since she’d had it a long time. But, it survived and, for awhile it was the office fish. The office is the college mental health center so that’s how Freud got it’s name. Now during that time he lived under the air conditioner, wasn’t fed on weekends and took a few rough trips out to my house but still survived. It came to live at my house Christmas 2005. It’s had dirty bowls, the wrong food and has been knocked over by cats and yet lived on. For the last year and a half it’s been sort of twisted looking and I’ve thought it was dead a number of times. When I’ve gone to pick up its bowl to make “arrangements” for its remains, it’s always sprung back to life - except for Friday. In the midst of my crisis I saw it lying on its back on the rocks at the bottom of the bowl dead as a door knob.
We’re getting a new beta tomorrow. Name: Floyd.
A friend of mine once started his car in the winter and then went back in for a few things and somehow, he explained but I’m still confused, somehow managed that when he was closing his door, his neck tie ended up caught in the door. He couldn’t pull it out. Both ends were trapped so he couldn’t loosen it. The door was now locked and the keys were sitting the running car.
He was stuck there for a good half hour.
More than once, I’ve left cash at the ATM. I have to have my keys in my hand befor I’ll close my apartment door out of fear that I’ll do it again. (lock myself out)