Breaking and entering

Honest, your honour, we didn't steal anything.

Ok, so it really wasn't anything like that at all. I have a friend visiting from Montana for the month. She's here to clean out her fathers house before it is sold. A sad, haunting and stressful time for her. Her father passed on only a couple months ago. So, in an effort to make certain she gets time away from her task and the emotional strain it involves, many of her local friends have been entertaining her on the weekends. My room-mate and I take our turns as well.

Last night we surprised her by kidnapping her and taking her to see Mama Mia, which she enjoyed. This morning, ok more like this afternoon, we took her out for brunch. She had to be back by 3:30pm because she had a 5pm dinner date with another friend. We actually got her home on time, only to discover that she had left her keys inside on the stairway. She was locked out.

No problem, I said. Last week you forgot to lock the sliding glass door in the back and I easily broke in. So we tried the door and every window on the first floor. No luck. All were very securely locked. But up there on the second floor were two bedroom windows with nothing but the screen between us and entry. Well, if you ignore the twenty feet above the ground. Great! Now all we need is a ladder. Surely one of the neighbours will have one.

So off my friend went to her neighbours to see if she could find a ladder, or possibly another set of keys that had previously not been mentioned. No one had keys, but we did find a ladder that was about eight feet short of what we needed.

And in the backyard there was a fairly sturdy though unlevel picnic table. Luckily, it was light and we were able to move it easily. Directly under a window went the table. On top of the table went the ladder. My friend and I steadied the ladder while my room-mate climbed up and removed the screen. Then climbed up to the very tippy top step of the folding ladder--the one you're not supposed to stand on--and figured out a way to hoist his body slowly into the window. We weren't at all certain he would be able to lift himself the rest of the way. There was that fear that he would fall and splatter himself all over the pool patio. Then what would we do? My friend is too short to reach the window from the top of the ladder and I have a leg injury that prevents me from climbing the ladder. Call a locksmith? Hmmm, maybe we should have done that in the first place? Nah, that would be too easy.

Then, of course, my room-mate heads out the front door rather than coming to the back where we were standing. Where are they, he wondered as we pounded on the glass of the rear door and laughed. We hadn't told him to open the back door instead. Sheesh. At least he remembered to grab the keys so that we wouldn't be locked out again. :-)

And now my friend has an adventure to share with her evenings date and with her husband and children. The latter arrive in a couple of weeks.

All in all it was a fun and uneventful day.