Because Karlo is Away . . .

Something had to go wrong. It never fails. The oddest, most bizarre things always happen while he is out of town. Like for instance the time when the garage door decided it would only open half way, get stuck, and retreat back down to the ground. Why would the door pick the day that I’m alone for this to happen? That morning I had to find Karlo’s saw and spend 15 minutes sawing a 2x4 that magically moved into the track of the door. I was late for work and full of saw dust when I arrived.

Or the time when the smoke alarms kept going off in the middle of the night. No fire in sight, but yet the darn things were screeching away. Then there was the ant invasion, the central vac breaking down . . . I can go on and on. The house gods are against me and like to play games with me. I’m starting to think that maybe Karlo booby traps the house on me just so I realize how much I need him!

So last night I went grocery shopping (as if that wasn’t bad enough). Most of you reading have been to the house and know that the garage is in the basement. It makes much more sense to pull the car to the front door (which is on ground level), unload the groceries and then park in the garage downstairs. I knew this was going to be a problem because I have yet to successfully unlock the front door on my own. Karlo got annoyed with my inability to open the door one day so he tried to give me a demo on how to put the key in, turn it and open the door. Yes, I needed a demo! And guess what? Even HE had trouble. That’s when I threw my arms in the air and said “Forget it. I’ll just never open the stupid door on my own.” I was happy with that solution.

And all this came flooding back to me last night as I pulled up with my sacred melting ice cream, in a rush to figure out how to get into the house. I put the key in, pushed real hard, tried like heck to turn it . . . nothing. Oooooohhhhhh, I was getting frustrated. How hard could this (or should this) be? I pushed and turned even harder . . .

This is what happened:



So now what? I was far too lazy to drive down and lug everything up so I walked around the porch and tested the side door. Just as I suspected, I forgot to lock it the night before! Did that make me feel better . . . or worse? I got in the house, but geeez whiz I should be more careful when I’m alone.

As if Karlo doesn’t already have a million things to do around the house, now he has to figure out how to get the other half of the key out of the lock. I wonder if that is even possible. And if we have to replace the lock, does that mean we have to replace ALL the locks just so we can use one key for all doors? Uuuugh. This will teach Karlo to leave me home alone!