Remember When I Said I Was the Village Idiot?

I locked myself out on my balcony and no one was home.

Oh yeah.

I'm serious.

No phone, no keys.

Dressed in a pair of shorts and cami.

Armed with a coffee filter and Windex.

Can't McGyver much out of that.

So, it's the first cold night this fall. I decide to wash the inside and out of my sliding glass doors. I'm dressed like white trash on a stick in cleaning clothes-shorts from high school that are really short and barely fit and a cami. Not exactly fall clothing. On a night we actually have fall weather. I wash the sliding part of the door and close it to wash the other side. AND THE BAR SLAMS DOWN!!! Don't ask me how it happened. Don't ask me how any of the stupid stuff happens to me. I'm just the village idiot. There's no other explanation.

Let me tell you, those anti-burglary bar thingies really work. Now I'm stuck outside with no phone or keys, upstairs on a balcony where the only option of getting down is jumping or breaking the door. I figured breaking the door was stupid because it's really late Friday night and wouldn't be fixed all weekend, not to mention being really expensive. And jumping would be even more expensive because I would so just happen to land on a tree stump or something that would break my leg or impale me. I have a reputation, ya'll.

I'm now left with the final option of waiting. Several scenarios would've worked out: 1. My brother or friend, both of which have keys, happen to let themselves in and see me out there. 2. My husband comes home from work early and sees me out there (which just occurred to me now, he didn't have a key. He gave it to my brother this morning. I was supposed to make him a key on the way home from work but the traffic sucked because of Obama and I didn't.) 3. Some random person walks by and sees me out there and lets me use their phone.

What happened was a modified version of number 3. Some old man was walking outside and I got his attention. I figured maybe he was a nice old man that would be gentlemanly and help me. And if he wasn't nice and was a bad guy, he probably couldn't get to me and I could totally take him if he could. I told him I was locked out and needed to call someone. He said he wasn't sure who I could call. I said I had family who had a key I just needed to make the call. He can't understand me and won't come closer but he went and knocked on his neighbor's door. After what seemed like forever, the neighbor, a young guy, comes out. He comes up to me and asks what happened because the old man was apparently very confused. I tell him and he runs back to get his phone. He climbs halfway up and gives me his phone, yelling instructions on how to use it as I call what I think is my brother's number and get a very confused, old, Latino lady. Then I call my momma's number praying she's awake and answers.

She does and I tell her I'm locked out and my brother and friend have keys and ask her to please send one to the rescue. She sends my brother and I throw (yes, throw, he insisted it would be alright and he did actually catch it) the phone back to the guy. He asks if I need anything else and I consider asking him to help me get down because he had gotten halfway up and I thought maybe he could get me down. But then I decided he was obviously athletic and there was no way I could take him if he turned out to be some sort of rapist.

Now my parents live at least15 minutes away, so I continued my wait. Of course about this time I had to pee but could do nothing but wait. I contemplate that either 1. the guy really is a rapist because he has no friends or 2. the guy is a really nice guy because he didn't call his friends to come laugh at me. I also realize that my brother's gonna get here and not know where I am because I'm on the balcony and not waiting out front and I really wasn't sure if I'd communicated that. But, he decides to come in just in case I had gotten in, thank God. So, he walks in calling my name and I knock on the sliding glass door. From the outside. We both bust up laughing and he lets me in.

Finally inside, I peed, put on a hoodie, got a drink of water, and made my brother go with me to thank the I-hope-he's-not-a-rapist guy, who had periodically checked on me and I wanted to know it was all resolved and he wasn't devising a scheme to rape me, or, you know, was worried about me and calling the cops or something.

As I picked up my own phone, I had two missed calls and a text message, which proved I'd been out there for a little over an hour.

So, the village idiot's lessons for the day: 1. It's wonderful to live near family. And 2. Thank God. He orchastrated the events to let my brother have a key today of all days and to let me get access to a phone. And I did not freeze to death out there!

: )

By the way, getting locked out totally cut into my cleaning time. Plus, you know, blogging about it. But my deadline is approaching and my house is getting better and better!