DIDO PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNA TRAVERSE
It’s funny how quickly a day can descend from perfectly normal to utter chaos. You make the smallest, subtlest choice — taking the recycling out now instead of later, just for instance — and all your plans come fluttering to the ground. Then what?
I was having a routine Thursday: Deadlines loomed, meetings approached, emails gathered like storm clouds, but I felt relatively in command of what I needed to do. Around lunchtime, because I have a strong distaste for clutter (clutter in the house feels like clutter in my mind), I walked out to our carport with an armload of newspaper sections and empty cans.
I should mention several things, in case you don’t read this column each and every month. The first is that we have a puppy: Dido, a rescue mix, who is about 9 months old as I write this. Now, Dido is a generally good-natured puppy, and she’s learning to be a well-behaved dog. But she’s got an energetic spirit, and she does not care for being left alone. The second is that my husband’s job is in a different state, and he was several hours away from home that day. The third is that we don’t lock the thumb-turns on our doorknobs, not ever — the deadbolts provide more security, and less opportunity for inadvertent lockouts. The fourth is that my phone battery happened to be low.
Other than the oppressive heat, and the moments of wondering if I would simply have to live in my carport from now on, it wasn’t the worst afternoon.
I deposited my armload in the recycling bin and walked back to the side door of our house. Placed my right hand on the knob and turned. Except — the knob didn’t turn. Somehow, the door I had only just walked through was locked from the inside. I heard Dido, the puppy, jumping at the door, and realized in a thud what had happened: The dog had locked me out of the house. Pressed the thumb-turn on the knob with her paw.
I tried jimmying it open with a credit card, but the door swells in hot weather, and the temperature that afternoon was 99 degrees (heat index: 110): The wood had swelled too much for the card to nudge the lock mechanism open. We had once stored a spare key outside, but at some point plucked it from its hidden nook to give to a pet-sitter. I thought a family member in the area might have a key, but she did not. I was well and truly locked out. And the puppy was staring at me through the window, like, “Hey Mom, where’d you go?” Oh, Dido.
The neighbors are having their house painted, and one of the workmen, observing my plight, came over and tried to help. He couldn’t jimmy the lock either, and quickly transitioned to taking apart the doorframe. When he was about to remove pieces of painted wood, I asked him to please stop (thank you for all your help! But: please stop!).
So I called a locksmith. (Remember, my phone was dying.) 15 minutes or so later, the locksmith arrived, and I sighed with relief. The locksmith, an amiable guy who seemed to know what he was doing, got to work on the door with his compressed-air bags and picking tools. And then he just kept working. The door didn’t seem to be budging. He started to look nervous, and I started to feel faintly ill. (That heat index.) Looking more distressed, he asked if there were any other doors we could try. Or any windows? Well, yes, there are other doors — all deadbolted. Yes, there are windows — but downstairs, none are made to open.
A colleague suggested over text that I could try jumping down the chimney, Santa-style. He tried drilling through the deadbolt of a different door, to no avail. I was stealing glances at my own home, through the windows, thinking how inviting it looked, and how sad that I would never again get to be inside. The puppy was looking very concerned — barking, whining, running loops — while I tried to reason with her through the windows.
Meanwhile, my phone went black. Rats. But my kind next-door neighbor appeared, took stock of the situation, and offered to help. He invited me inside to charge the phone, and pressed a cold can of sparkling water in my hand. We chatted a while — he and his wife are the best neighbors you could hope to have — and I left the phone there to charge.
Eventually, after an hour and a half or so, the locksmith called in reinforcements: two more locksmiths. The three of them, equipped with even more tools, did manage to drill through the deadbolt of door no. 2. And so it was that on a perfectly normal Thursday in August, a miracle transpired: I walked into the house. (Dido’s response: “Oh. You’re here! Yay!” I cannot be mad at this dog.)
The rest is mundane: Locksmiths nos. 2 and 3 departed; locksmith no. 1 left to acquire a new deadbolt and returned to install it; I paid a couple hundred dollars for the pleasure of being inside my house. We had a good story to tell at the dog park later.
But here’s the thing: Other than the oppressive heat, and the moments of wondering if I would simply have to live in my carport from now on, it wasn’t the worst afternoon. Separated from my laptop (and then my phone, too), I couldn’t work. I could only talk and laugh with people—helpful contractors working next-door, no fewer than three locksmiths, my neighbor. The world got smaller (and hotter), and more boring. But boredom’s a dying art. And a smaller world can feel more like home. Plus, apparently the house would be difficult to burgle.
We’ll be taking steps to ensure the dog can’t lock us out of the house again. In the meantime, I recommend finding the humor in bizarro circumstances. But dogs, if you’re reading this: Please don’t lock your humans out of the house.
