In Which We Get Locked Out, Are Doofuses

We were up at the mountain house from New Year's Day to tonight, just the four of us. It was a good, quiet getaway, even though the weather was chilly and gray. Friday, after we ate supper, we decided to go out for a nighttime walk. Matt had gotten the kids some LED flashlights to play with, and we bundled up and set out in the dark. It's all just dirt roads around the house, and there aren't many people up there. We had a glowstick we were throwing around, and the flashlights made spooky effects in the fog. It was fun. We walked up to the old tractor and ran up and down hills until Hank was tired and ready to go home. Laura was the first one back to the house. When she called out that the front door was locked, I felt a sinking sensation. I just knew that all of the FOUR other doors would be locked too. And they were.

So, on the outside of the house: the four of us, the dog, and our unlocked van. Inside the house: our keys and our phones. It was 35 degrees. We were all wearing good jackets, with a couple of hats and pairs of gloves between us--and we were warm from walking so the temperature didn't seem like an immediate problem. Matt and I walked around the house. It is not the kind of house where you can wiggle a window up--this place is new and tight as a drum. Some of the doors were deadbolted, some were only locked at the doorhandle, some were locked both ways. We had left all the lights on, and there was an open bag of tortilla chips sitting on the table. I thought, "Dang, those are going stale."

The problem is that there are just no close neighbors to go to. What houses there are are vacation places, most of them, and I don't know the whole mountain well enough to know who is a year-round resident. I thought I had heard sounds coming from down the hill earlier in the day, so I left Matt and the kids trying the windows, and I started off down the road with the dog trotting along. (Later I heard Laura telling this story, she said, "Mom ran into the forest for help." I love that, like it's a fairy tale.) The two closest houses were dark, but then I rounded a corner and saw a house all lit up. This is a place we've often walked by, and I had never, ever seen anyone there. I knocked on the door, and these people let me in. They were there as renters for the week--it was grandparents, parents, and little kids--and they let me use their phone while the kids fed pieces of steak to the dog. I got Dad on the phone in Pensacola. I thought maybe he could get his builder, a local guy who has a key, to come let us in, but he couldn't reach him. When I told him we were locked out, one of the first things out of his mouth was, "It would be very expensive to break a window." Silly Dad! We weren't going to break a window--I wanted to break the pane of glass on the door by the hot tub. Break a window--what an idea! Ho ho. I admit that I am so clueless that I hadn't even thought of a locksmith. Good thing I called, right?

So I used the yellow pages and called Jackie's Locksmithing, and Jackie picked up the phone. Another lucky stroke. I gave Jackie very detailed directions to the house, and my new best friends gave me a ride back up the hill. Matt and the kids were hanging out in the minivan. Half an hour later Jackie arrived with her husband, also named Jackie. They looked alike, too. They got to work with their little picks, each on a different door. And damned if I didn't think they weren't going to be able to get in. It took a long time. Not like in the movies. At one point Mrs. Jackie broke her pick off in the deadbolt and had to use a super-big magnet to get it out. It was starting to feel colder. And they worked and worked. I was back to considering what other options we had besides getting into the house, but I figured that having taken on the job, the Jackies wouldn't give up easily. Finally Mrs. Jackie got the deadbolt to turn slightly, and used Mr. Jackie's pocket knife to open it the rest of the way. Whew!

All that time the Jackies were working, I thought, "Hmm, the meter is surely running on this--I wonder what this will cost?" Not that it wouldn't be worth it, of course. So after we were in I asked Mrs. Jackie if she took plastic (she did), and she said, "If you don't mind, that will be fifty dollars." Fifty dollars! I thought it would be two hundred at least. I was looking around for a bottle of booze to give them. Anything. Later I told Matt that if emergency locksmithing is that cheap, then I'm just not going to even carry keys anymore. He didn't really think that was funny.

So it could have been way worse. We could have gotten locked out without warm clothes on. Or the house down the hill could have been empty. Or the Jackies could have been unavailable or unwilling. Or, horrors, we could have been locked out while we were hot tubbing. (Then we would have broken a window for sure.) And this isn't the first post I had planned to write after a week away from blogging. (Hey internets! I missed you so much and I hate it when we're apart! Let's never do that again!) Tomorrow I'll update about my trip to San Francisco. But I am still slapping my forehead and saying "Doh!" every time I think of us standing outside with our noses pressed to the glass. Have you ever done something like that? I mean, I have never even locked my keys in my car, and here we were standing in the cold, dark wilderness with little kids outside and open Tostitos inside. Think of the Tostitos!

So that's what we've been up to. I hope you guys had a lovely New Year's week!