How to Break Into My House: A Beginner's Guide*

Here is a fun story.

It is the story of how I broke into my house.

This story actually happened last week (so no, I was not somehow locked out of my house AND sick. The universe doesn't hate me that much), but I am pretty impressed with myself and who doesn't want to hear the story that starts with "So today I broke into my house."

As I do everyday, I took the bus home after I finished class and walked to my house. I'd stuck around a little longer than normal and so when I got to my door, I was imagining the lovely raw celery and carrot sticks that were waiting for me inside. Mmm... I pulled my key out of my backpack, slid it into the lock, turned it...

And nothing happened. The key just turned around and around and around. The lock on my house is temperamental, so a little jiggling is often required. Believe you me, I jiggled plenty. No dice. I tried turning the key the other way, to see if I could lock it some more. The key did the opposite and stopped dead, wouldn't turn another inch. At this point, I realized I needed to call in the only person who knows more about our lock than I do. I called my mom, the woman who kept us in our house for years until everyone else got the hang of the lock.

She works quite nearby, so she was able to pop home. When she got to the door, she slid her (often magic) key into the door and said "I think I know what's wrong."

Backtrack to that morning, as we ran out the door late. My mom was having a hard time locking the door. She gave her (this time actually magic) key a hard turn and the lock clicked. Off we went. What we'd forgotten was the single key, sans key chain and therefore nearly invisible, left in the lock on the other side.

You know where I'm going with this.

So, with the key in the other side, there was no way we could unlock the thing. NO way. Mom was about to call the locksmith when the exciting version of me popped up with a plan. "I'll break in a window!"

We have an addition off the back of my house, a one-story addition. Before I knew it, I had the old, wooden, rickety ladder on the deck, against the addition. I climbed up the thing, strange stick-y tool in one hand, all ready to pry open a window.

Did I mention it was starting to rain?

The landing window became my target since there was a convenient bookshelf under the window. It only took me about 5 minutes to pry the screen up a couple different ways and wrenched the window high up. I can't even begin to describe to you how incredibly proud of myself I was. I felt strong and proud, like I can do anything!

Just before I disappeared into the window, my neighbour spoke up from the driveway. "You know, some people have PhD or BA next to their names. You can add "B.E." now!" Damn straight:

La Candienne, BE. Nice.




*This is title is going to bring some fun people to my blog via google...