I'm so good at getting locked out of everywhere.

It seems I'm real good at getting myself in the weirdest situations.

In the past, I've been known to forget to bring my keys when I really should have them. Any former roomate will attest to this. Ask Kendra (ps- Kendra get a blog so I can link to you). She saved my life about a million times I bet in just two years as my roomster.

For example, Freshman year I came home from a lacrosse tournament on a Sunday morning, and when I got to my apartment, I realized I didn't have keys, and all my roommates were at church, and I still didn't own a cell phone. So I went to church in my lacrosse sweats all embarrassed.

Did I learn my lesson? Of course not.

This past summer, I went to Lake Powell - Paul got strep and hated his life, plus he had to go to Oregon, so he couldn't come. When I got back from Lake Powell... alive..., my parents take me to my apartment and... no keys. So we tried to break in. No luck. I was leaving to meet Paul in Oregon the next day, so I had to borrow a whole-lotta clothes from my mom and sisters.

I think I learned my lesson that time. I almost always have keys with me now! I'm getting better at remembering things! Ask Paul.

I even saved the day when Paul accidentally locked our keys in the trunk while visiting V+N in PA, but I had brought my keys so it was all good! (The funny part was how Paul didn't tell me he locked the keys in the car.. he just snuck downstairs and went through my stuff to find my keys.. then told me later when everything worked out fine.)

But, today was a whole new kind of misfortune. I went to go pick up my freshly dried clothes from the laundry room. Paul asked me to lock the door every time I leave, even just to go get laundry (that should be in quotes because I'm pretty sure he said exactly that about one week ago). So I locked the door. (Look at me! Doing laundry, locking the door - I'm such a great wife, right?)

When I get back with my 1000 lbs of laundry, I go to open the door and my key gets stuck. You see, our lock has been kind of loosey goosey and neither Paul or I wanted to figure out who to call the fix it. So we didn't, because it still worked... (emphasis on the past tense). Well my key wasn't really doing much, so I kept turning it, trying to get it out when... the whole lock falls out of the door. With my key in it.

Uh... ? Are locks supposed to do that?

Panic mode sets in because, guess what! I have to leave for work in like... 15 minutes. And you see, the part where you put the key in fell out, but the deadbolt was still there - and still very much deadbolted. So I'm locked out in a whole-new-sorta-way. Helpless, I say!

But not entirely helpless, because when I was coming back from the laundry room I noticed some Rutger's (we live on campus) housing people standing around... as usual. Seriously, every time I see these people they are standing around talking to each other. Even on THIS day. Except they were holding shovels. But just standing/talking/watching us dig out our car.

But it was worth a shot to see if they could help. A super tall dude with a righteous long gray ponytail and leather baseball hat says he'll come take a look. As he's standing there trying to figure it out he says, "Could you open the door so I can get some light, it's kind of dark out here."
...are you kidding me?

"The door is locked!" I say. "Ooooooh... you're locked out." He says.
???
Yeah.. that's why I'm holding the broken lock in my hand and running up to random people for help.

So then he gets a little more serious about it all, and calls some people on his radio and tries breaking in with all sorts of tools. No luck. In the mean time I'm getting hypothermia and he probably is to so he says I can wait in "the shop" because.. it's 20 degrees outside plus some major wind chill. So I go and sit in the shop and I'm stressing out because my phone is locked in too. When a tender mercy happened and I felt a little vibration in my pocket.

Oh.. I guess my phone isn't locked in. It's here... in my pocket!
(thanks for the text Julie! you saved the day, kind of! sorry i didn't answer back yet - stressful moment of my life).
(also... Eric, no- i don't have my iPhone yet, just my old flippy- PB ordered it online so I have to wait a few days... can't wait! otherwise i would have documented all of this with great pics!)

So my first phone call (...I kind of felt like I was in prison) was to the OG to tell them I was going to be late. Manager Bob...  wasn't very happy - which isn't a surprise because he hasn't been happy since the Jets lost in the playoffs. Seriously. It's been several weeks, man! Let it go!

Second phone call was the hubs, to tell him my predicament. I think he thought it was kind of funny, picturing me sitting around this shop with all these weird housing people. But he was nice... while he held back his laughs.

See - how do I get myself in these kind of situations? I was just grabbing the laundry! At least I was wearing semi-normal clothes, because usually when I do laundry I wear whatever clothes I don't want washed - which can sometimes produce some interesting ensembles. Gray jeans with my gray wool coat looked kind of weird, but it's not the worst that could've happened.

So... about ten minutes in the shop and the locksmith shows up. Hurray! Because all the housing people were off at 4, and they were going to let me sit in some empty apartment to wait so I could stay warm. Nice of them, but that would be weird. I couldn't even sit. These apartments are unfurnished!

The locksmith... first scolds me for not having them fix the lock sooner. Then turns out to be a swell guy, and takes a power drill to the door. Then a screwdriver. The he starts hitting the screwdriver with a hammer. Then he does this a lot of other times REALLY hard. I'm thinking... why are the people next door not checking what is going on out here - because it was quite the racket. After about 15 minutes of stress and hammer hitting on his part... or enough time to let my toes all go numb, he finally gets the door open! Horray!!! It's a miracle!

(Sure glad we have the best lock in the world on our door, because even a locksmith had a hard time with it... when it was already broken in half!).

When I came home from work... there was a nice new shiny lock on our door. :)

So now that I remember my keys all the time, and I still get locked out- what is that supposed to mean? Maybe it's to entertain all the people in the world with embarrassing stories of awkward situations I find myself in. I hope you enjoyed.

PS. I promise pics of our fun weekend with Val and the kiddos tomorrow since you just endured all these words.