Because Tracy asked for it...

I have a cool gal pal who lives in Atlanta, GA. We spoke on the phone the other day, and she told me she checks the blog at her office, first thing, before she hunkers down to do any real work. I thought, "Gosh, that's awfully nice of her to care so much about the pint-sized roller coaster that is my existence." I also thought, "Gosh, poor thing, I only get to post twice a week or so; I'm so busy perfecting my headless chicken imitation." So, for you, my dear, a little story to make a Monday better day.

A friend asked me to check in on her cats while she is on vacation. I agreed because, one, I love cats, and hers are very sweet and have no claws in the event they decide to unsweeten themselves for a day; and two, heck I don’t have anything else to do. (Insert laugh track HERE.) She asked two other ladies to share the cat sitting duties, so I figured I’d check in on them twice a week and the other ladies would do the same. That way, the beasties would get some human contact almost everyday. Ya with me?

The cat's mother left on Monday, and I went over on Tuesday. The skillfully hidden key was just where she said it would be skillfully hidden– under the front door mat. (She lives in a low-crime area with nosy neighbors.) I let myself in, jiggling the key as instructed, fed the cats, petted the cats, put the toys my boys played with back where they supposed to be, the lamp back on the table and left, locking up behind me.

On Wednesday, as I am out and about, I got a cell phone message from a mutual friend, one of the cat sitting crew, that said, “Hi, I am at the cat’s house, and the key is stuck in the door. I can’t lock up after me.” I got this message at 3:00, but she had left it at 11:00 am. I assumed she had managed to extricate the key and didn’t think any more of it. I next saw the mutual friend at a birthday party, and she told me she had called a locksmith, who had banged really hard on the door to get the key out, and had charged her $110 for the privilege. I made sympathetic noises, and thought, “Well, maybe she didn’t jiggle the key correctly.” Oh! How pride goeth before a fall!

The next time I stopped by to feed the cats, I had my DH with me. He put the key in the lock and…drum roll…it got stuck. As you may guess, we weren’t able to unstick it. The key would not unlock the door to get in, nor were we able to remove the key from the lock, to abort the mission, and go away. Nope, we were stuck. So I called the mutual friend, who directed me as to precisely where the overpriced door banger had done his magic. Wham! Wham! Wham! (Wake me up before you go-go.) No avail.

As we stood on her doorstep, rattling the key and jiggling the door and chasing the babies, a mailman came up the walk. “Is that door still acting up?” he asked. “Why, yes,” we replied, “We are here to feed the cats and the key is stuck and so are we!” “I used to live here," he said, "and I got the key stuck a lot too. I would leave a basement window open and get in that way.”

My DH, ever a man of action, felt that the basement option sounded better than the $110 door banging locksmith. Heck, he might have charged even more to thump a door on a weekend, and we are frugal people. Therefore, the DH snaked his lithe form in through the window, and wiggled the bolt around from the inside, loosening the key, which then fell out of the lock. We were saved! As we stood around congratulating each other on our successful entry and telling ourselves how the cats will be quite pleased to get another meal, I said, “Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Mailman! And how long did you live here with the sticky key?”

“About 17 years.”

That locksmith must be rolling in clover by now.