A couple weeks ago, I and an incredible team of staff and a few (300) volunteers pulled off a very successful Pride Festival in our town. It was also the hottest weekend of the year so far. After 31 hours of running the festival, I was le tired. I think I actually died, and then my ghost was tired. You might be thinking, what does being tired have to do with breaking and entering…ohhhh, let me tell you.

After a team of us cleaned up the festival site and then unpacked the truck at our office, I thought to myself, “Self, it would be smart to return the truck tonight, so you don’t have to wake up early tomorrow to return in.” I conned one of the sleepy staff into following me to the rental and taking me home, sucker!

I pulled the truck into the spot that read “Returns, Stop Here” I grabbed the receipt, my wallet, and my diet dr. pepper (not a sponsor—but call me!) and jumped out of the truck. Okay, I crawled out of the truck because I was very sore. I locked the truck and walked to the key drop box. I dropped the keys in and thought to myself, “Oh, shit! NOOOOOOOOO!” It was at this moment I realized that my keys were still in the truck. Inside the truck that I had so stupidly just locked.

I took a deep breath and remembered that I had a key hidden in a place that I am not going to publicize on my blog. I walked back to the car of the sucker, I mean staff member, driving me home and confessed my grave error. She generously offered that I could stay at her house, if need be. To me, this sounded like the worst idea ever, it sounded like a nightmare I had once. No, I did not want to stay at a colleague’s house, after I had spent 31 hours with them. All I wanted was to be inside my home, alone with my dog. I explained I had a spare key, so that was kind (and my nightmare) but unnecessary.

I went to my spot where my key is hidden and to my horror, it was not there. I did not want the staff person to know that I had no key, because then she might insist I stay. Also I could see my dog at the door, she needed me. I mimed a key in my hand, smiled and waved, and walked into my sun porch and stared hopelessly at my door. When she left, I went around to every window….all locked. Damn me and my security.

When the windows didn’t seem like an option, I remembered all the action movies I had seen. A credit card!!! I googled this from my phone—which had a battery life of 7%. And tried using a credit card to break into my house. After 15 minutes, I was sweaty, frustrated, and still locked out of my house. What was I going to do!? I thought about calling a lock smith, but that sounded expensive and it was 3am.

It was then, that I realized there was one window I hadn’t tried, the small bathroom window. I walked over to it and realized it was taller than I could reach. I grabbed a chair and brought it over to the window. I hopped up on it and was still a little too short to reach it. I then grabbed the matching table and climbed up. Yes! I said a little prayer to whichever higher power was awake at this hour and paying attention to my fiasco.

I pushed on the window and it opened. I let out an excited scream before clasping my hands over my mouth. The last thing I needed was a neighbor to wake up and look out to find the source of the disturbance and see me trying to break in through a window. I pushed the window up some more and it stopped. “Damnit me, why did you put the safety lock on. It makes it really difficult to break in….oh, that’s probably why.” Think Jay, think, what are you going to do?” I decided to just try to muscle my way through this situation and kept opening and closing the window trying to break the little safety lock device. I began regretting the days I skipped going to the gym.

Finally, after a lot of pleading with the window and repeated slamming and heaving, I heard a loud snap. And the window opened enough for me to slither through. It was going to be a tight fit. I pleaded to the window to not let me get stuck, because I think that’s worse than being locked out. I climbed in, head first and looked down, there was my toilet. I had a vision of me falling into my toilet, and thought “Urine trouble, Jay.”  I reached to put the toilet seat down. And lost my balance and tumbled into my bathroom. I popped up and put my hands above my head and exclaimed, “Tah-Dah!” I had successfully broken in and entered my home. I shut the bathroom window and locked it.

I let my dog out, so she could go to the bathroom. I changed into my pajamas and plugged my phone in. I texted 3 of my friends to share how proud I was of breaking in. They all replied the next morning telling me I was an idiot.

Lesson: Always put your spare key back into the hiding spot. Always double check you are not locking your keys into the rental before locking the rental. If one door closes and is locked, there’s probably a window somewhere that’s open.

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