Skip to main content

Ninja Skills

So, I was home alone one day. This was not a particularly special day, it was just another weekend. It's not like we're talking about Christmas or a new member of the family or something. No, it was just another weekend, like any other. The only real difference on this particular day was that I was by myself in the house.

Now, I had to do chores around the house. The first thing I was focusing on was laundry, so I threw a load into the wash. Everything was going well, and I was multi-tasking so that I could do some writing while I waited for the laundry to finish. Of course, washing the clothes is only the first half of the chore, so I had to throw that load of laundry into the dryer. I also had a second load of laundry to do, so I decided to multi-task. I threw the second load of laundry into the washer, and moved the first load into the dryer.

Yes, I know that everyone does this. It's more or less standard practice. But you can't help but feel a little bit productive when you pull off this little trick. You just saved yourself a little bit of time, after all. So, emboldened by my modicum of success, I decided to head outside to the back yard. There were plants back there to water, after all.

So, I opened the door to the backyard, and headed back there to water the plants. Two seconds later, I realized that I needed something from inside the house. I turned around, grabbed the door handle, and turned the knob. As if by magic, the door knob wouldn't turn. Somehow, the door was locked. I am 1000% positive that I did not lock the door behind me (why the heck would I do that?), but somehow, it was locked. Remember, I had opened that very door to get outside. So at some point, it must've been unlocked. Then, two seconds later, that door was locked.

As mystifying as those facts were, I still had a very tactical problem: I was outdoors, on the wrong side of a locked door. I have a habit of keeping keys in my pocket, just in case. However, I'm fairly certain that nobody keeps the key to their back door on a key ring. Still, hoping against hope, I tried the keys on my ring. And no such luck.

Well, that was a bummer. Remember, I was still home alone. I didn't expect anyone home for pretty much forever, so I was on my own to solve this problem. Either that, or I'd have to call a locksmith or something. That seemed like a real hassle, so I decided to try to solve this problem on my own first.

And that's when I noticed the pole. It was a load-bearing structure, so it was connected to the second story balcony. The same second story balcony that frequently has an unlocked door to the house. I looked around, weighed my options, and then decided to try my American Ninja Warrior skills. I had to shimmy up the pole, do a pull up to get myself above the floor of the balcony, get my feet on a ledge, and then hop over the railing. Did I mention that I hadn't worked out in a while?

Adrenaline is a funny thing. When your back is up against the wall, you can surprise yourself. Apparently I had enough adrenaline coursing through me to get me up there. Luckily for me, the door to the house was unlocked. How much would it have sucked if I did all that and then the door was locked?

Of course, I had to wade through some chairs and some other items stacked up near that door. By that point, though, I would've happily bull rushed through all of those items. Still, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. I joke about being a ninja all the time, but this time I had to put my money where my mouth was. Apparently, I have just enough ninja skills to break into my own house.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...