In the blue of evening, night winds above whisper...

Let me tell you about my afternoon and early evening. It's a long sordid tale, so bear with me, the setup takes a lil bit of time.

This morning, mom left on a bus trip to Nashville. Miss Cleo needed her oil changed, so since mom was out of town, I made the appointment for today, that way I could take mom's car to work. So last night, I dropped the car off at the mechanic and walked home (its only about a 20 minutes walk).

This morning, I got up, walked to mom's got her carkeys, got the car, and went to work. After work, I stopped at the mechnic, paid the bill, got my carkeys, and put them on my keychain. I drove mom's car to her place and put it in the garage. I was going to take her keys into her house, but I didn't want to get the dog all wound up if i wouldn't be staying. And I had to take the dog out and put her to bed tonight anyway, so I'd just take the keys up then.

So I walked home. It was sprinkling, but not a bad rain. I got home, got the mail, changed clothes, hung out a bit. Then, about 5:45, I decided I'd walk down to the mehanic's to get Miss Cleo. I got my iPod, and wallet. Got my phone and even my camera, cause you never know when I might want to take a photo. I got a sweatshirt with a hood, because I have two of those compact umbrellas, but both were in the car.

So I leave the house and start to walk. Because it's raining, I took my glasses off and put them in my pocket cause I didn't want to get them all wet. But I didn't want my keys to scratch the up, so I made sure the keys weren't that pocket. And indeed they weren't. In fact, they weren't in ANY of my pockets.

I had locked myself outside with the keys inside.

Okay, after a moment of panic, I thought, well, mom had a spare set, I'll just walk to her house to get them. I turned around and started back that way. Until I thought, 'Oh...I hope my house keys are NOT on her car keys, cause they're inside my house as well.' I called mom, and well, you guessed it, my spare key WAS on her keychain...which was inside my house with MY house keys. Oh, and I had a third spare key as well....but that was in a drawer in my kitchen.

So what does mom say, "Well, what are you going to do?" Well YEAH, what AM I going to do??? God love her grasp of the obvious. She mentioned a locksmith, which I had thought of, but said I didn't really pay for that if we had another key anywhere. But she said the only spare she had was on her car keys.

There's a hardware store just a block from my house, which mom reminded me of, so off I went there. I got there just as they were closing and asked them if they had a locksmith there. Nope, they say, but I could try calling the police. Fine, I got the police number (not gonna call 911 for something this stupid) and called. They could send an officer out, but did I have any second story windows open. I thought, "It's raining, idiot, why would any windows be open?" And then added, "I mean, unlocked, any windows unlocked." Okay, so he's not an idiot, but that doesn't change the fact I didn't have any open. Then he said they could kick the door open, that's about all they could do. Again, I'm thinking, "Oh that's swell, thanks. Not like I couldn't do that myself." And then suggested a locksmith. I literally slapped my forehead saying to myself, 'Gee, now why didn't I, or mom or the hardware store people think of that?" but I said ok, and hung up.

I went back into the hardware store and got the number for the town's only locksmith. I got his message, saying the business closed at 5:00. I still left my name, address and phone number. And then I called mom and told her. She said, "Well, if nothing else you can spend the night at my house (she has a key hidden outside, and I know where that is) and then take my car to work tomorrow." I told i couldn't take her car to work tomorrow. She said, "yeah, I've got a spare garage key in the house." "But you only have one set of car keys, and they're IN MY HOUSE!" "oh yeah." *SIGH*

So I started back towards her house, when the locksmith called. He said he'd be at my place in 30 minutes. So I changed direction yet AGAIN and walked back to my house. I sat on the front porch and waited. I called mom to tell her what was going on now. Less then 15 minutes later, the locksmith showed up. Him getting to my house early was the only good thing about the whole night.

So he sees the lock and kinda groans, "Oh, it's an old Corban." he says the lock is probably fromthe 1940s, and very sturdy, which is good for me the owner, but bad for him the locksmith. I was worried he might not be able to do it, but he said he should, it would just take longer. Fifteen minutes later, he says he can through the first three (or something like that) but it doesnt' want to turn to the left. He said he can drill it, if I want him too. Well, what else am i gonna do, I need in my house right?

So he gets his drill, drills it. he says he didn't bring a new lock with him, but he has them at the shop and can bring one tomorrow. He opens at 9:30 and should be here right after that. And he set the lock so that no thing, not even a key will be able to open it. But luckily, I have a front door I can use. So, by 7:10, everything's over.

Once he's gone, I have to call in to work and tell them I'll be late. And then I realize I STILL have to go get Miss Cleo. So, making sure I DON'T lock the front door (just to be sure) I head out. But now, of course, it's raining pretty steady. And over the 20 minutes it takes me to get to the mechanic's, yeah, I got pretty wet. In addition, I had taken my glasses off, and since it was dark, I couldn't really see the puddles too well...some of them rather large and deep. So by the time I got home, not only was my sweatshirt pretty wet, but my canvas (yeah, canvas0 sneakers were soping wet, as were the socks I was wearing, my feet inside them, AND my pants from halfway down my shins.

*SIGH*....Although I suppose it COULD have been worse: I could have something cooking on the stove the entire time, of I could have had a very young baby or a doddering old senile person upstairs and no gate across the top of the stairs, or a meteor could have slammed into my house. Other than that...yeah, not much else would have been worse.

POLT Listening to the Dolphins - Panthers football game

You can't buy happiness, but you can bloddy well charge it! - Absolutely Fabulous