First of all, my thanks to Tim Bousquet for mentioning me and the blog in the July 2nd edition of The Halifax Examiner. Much appreciated, sir.
I had meant to write this post yesterday but I fell asleep before I had a chance to put pen to paper. Or, rather, fingers to keyboard.
We were leaving for work Wednesday morning. Just before she closed the side door, Patricia asked, "Do you have the keys to the house?"
"Of course, I do, darling!", I replied.
She closed the door.
A half second after she closed the door I realized, to my absolute dismay, that I had the wrong set of keys on me. I had the keys to the front door, but the steps leading thereto are no longer there. I did not have the keys to the side steps, the only means of ingress to my home.
Rassum frassum.
I was no god on my way to work yesterday. I wondered how I could be such a dumb dumb. I mean, I am only using the side door out of necessity. The front entrance is far more convenient, but that is not an option right now, what with the many thousands of dollars of work being done to my home.
The day crawled along at a speed reminiscent of how quickly a postal worker moves through amber while addicted to Valium. I thought over and over about how to go about breaking into my house and cause the least amount of damage to it.
I got an idea.
I got home. The frame for the front deck is up, so I took the steak knife I keep here at my work and used it to cut the spline on the outer screen door. I had left the "window" on the screen door open 8 inches or so, leaving the screen available for me. I used the step ladder I had purchased last year to climb up to the level where the frame was and employed the knife to hack at the screen and the spline. Having done that, I was then able to adjust the pane in the screen door upwards to its max. This enabled me to reach up and unlock the screen door's two locks and open it. This let me unlock the storm door. And I was in the house!
I called Patricia, who was remaining at work until her Pilates class at 7:30. She saw the number come up on her phone and teased me breaking into my own house. Hee hee.
I fed the cats. I went outside via the side door and put the ladder away.
Do you like irony? Here's a piece of it. As I was cleaning up the spline and the screen stuff from the door, I was approached by a young man who asked how the construction work was proceeding. I told him how it was going and what I had just had to do: break into my house.
And, who was this young man?
Hmm?
Give up?
It was the same fellow who broke into my house some 7 years ago!
Let's not go there. I have long since forgiven him for what he did. I am not going to identify him, but the irony of the situation was not lost on me and I felt compelled to pass this incident along.
I got back inside. I got caught up on the two most recent episodes of "24"; this season has been excellent. I surfed the web. I watched "Inner Space" on the Space channel. I picked up Patricia from her class. We grabbed a veggie burger at Harvey's in Bayer's Lake. And we returned home for the evening.
It was a nerve wracking day, but one that ended well. We can laugh over the incident, and I can chuckle over the ironic vignette I just described. And I can also look forward to the soon-to-come day when this construction work will all be done and we can enjoy the new front and back decks. Patricia wants to sit on the front deck and watch people walk and drive by. I want to be on the back deck and read my kindle and eat barbecue. I will likely be able to do interview transcription outside for the first time ever. It is just days away.
Assuming that Hurricane Arthur doesn't blow the hemlock wood around like toothpicks this weekend!
Sigh.
See you tomorrow.
Bevboy
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