She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

I probably am the worst blogger ever since it's been over three years since my last post. How do you recap three years of changes? Ask someone else because I don't know the answer and I'm not going to attempt to give life updates in a tidy list. No, today's post will focus on a fantastic adventure that I had the other day when I locked myself out of the house and climbed in through the bathroom window. Most of the time I truly feel like I have my life together but on this particular day I'd say unless I wanted to reenact the McCartney (they credit Lennon for the song too but really it was Paul) song from 1969, then for those 15 minutes life was NOT together. 

It was  Monday and per Florida's summer schedule it was a brisk disgustingly sweltering 94 degrees outside. I pulled into the driveway and almost immediately realized I didn't have my house key. I went through the typical emotions: 1) surprise 2) anger 3) hunger (I really wanted lunch!). I texted the maintenance man who has a spare in the hopes that he would rescue me but sadly he was out of town. There is no spare key hidden (I know, I know) and so that left me with two options: 1) Call a locksmith or 2) break into the house. I chose option 2. All of our windows were locked EXCEPT the bathroom window. I had left it unlocked when I bleached the tub. I had enthusiastically cleaned the bathroom and may have overdone it with the Clorox. To prevent myself from blacking out from foaming bathroom cleaner, I opened the window. Later in the afternoon I shut the window but didn't lock it. It's phenomenal that I remembered that detail of not locking the window but failed to remember my house key. 

I went into the backyard, climbed on the A/C unit, used a pen to break the screen and pulled the screen out. I paused to pay homage to McGyver because I'm almost positive there is an episode where he does something similar (probably using a paper clip though instead of a ball point pen). I then thought for a few more seconds on a few other early '90's television shows--Young Riders, anyone?--but snapped back to reality when I heard the foster dog barking from inside. Side note: If you want to adopt a wonderfully lovable 12 year old dog (hey, age is just a number!) let me know! He's super well behaved and with a bit more training should be able to unlock doors. Once I had the window open I had to jump into it but things got complicated because the window is high on the wall and there's nothing below it but a bathtub (a clean one though!). I pulled on the curtain rod to see if it would hold my weight but it immediately fell down and thus ended my plan to swing into the bathroom like Tarzan. At this point half of my body is in the window and in the bathroom and the other half (my legs and the denim shorts that fit fine when I'm not scaling houses but tend to get short very quickly when climbing is involved) is sticking outside of the window. It was landscaping day in the neighborhood and while the backyard has a nice privacy fence I was high enough to where the entire street could see this. Shoutout to everyone for not rushing to my aid, this was a true skill building adventure. The only way that I could get through the window completely would be to make it where I could reach the bathtub side and get enough of my torso on it to let my legs fall. I needed to do this without breaking my neck. I pulled one leg completely through the window and stuck my shoe into the window track. I then slowly lowered myself so that I was flat against the wall and brought my other leg in and stuck that foot into the window track. Now that my feet were stabilized and I was hanging like a graceful gymnast from her bars during an Olympic routine (kidding, I probably looked like a roadkill possum hanging from a tree) I was able to grab the side of the tub and quickly whip my feet in. I fell in a heap on top of lots of toddler bath toys. 

I write this post because I think social media makes it seem as if we all have our lives together. While for the most part I can handle significant responsibilities there are also times when I blank and leave my house key in buildings that are 25 minutes away. No one likes to admit that part of life but here I am in all my glory reminding you that it happens to all of us. 

Being a lawyer is about being a problem solver so I want to thank my three years of law school and almost five years of practice for teaching me how to solve problems, specifically problems that require ball point pens and some nice core strength.