Looking in from the outside

Well, the things you own, they end up owning you... as goes the quote from Fight Club. Love that movie.  We still have old possessions weighing us down, scattered over the country.  In a couple provinces anyway.  

And we still have to deal with this junk, errr - I mean keepsakes.  Depends who you ask. Fortunately for good friends, we had stored several boxes and a couple pieces of furniture at 'JC's house.  Now you sorta forget about this stuff, and who really knows where the time goes, but 2 years later and he is moving - selling his house.  That meant we had a fun Saturday.  

Our short term solution was moving it to another friend's house.  Eventually you have to deal with problems. Now we're not total mooches, in return friends have been well furnished.  To make a lesser demand on space, we spent the afternoon condensing boxes and allocating a fair portion to goodwill and the old garbage can.

So now we get to the good part of the story.  The night before we went out for a few drinks, dancing, go to bed at 4 type deal.  We stayed over at our friend's house.  Our boxes to sort through were out in the garage, which is separate from the house.  They were going out for the afternoon, but we were welcome to stay and take care of the boxes.  The key was left inside and the door open, both Cat and I were in the garage when they pulled out.  Fine, kept working away, then Cat walked around to the door to go in....

You guessed it - the door was locked!  No big deal.  Hold on, Cat doesn't have her phone - it's inside.  No truck keys, wallet, food, water...  everything is locked safely away inside the house.  I don't even have a jacket on, and it's raining outside!  Of course, Cat immediately starts to panic.  Having no food or water after a night out...  she is surely going to die!  

This is a great way to test out your resourcefulness.  We check all the doors and windows - locked.  Scour the garage for a spare key...  we're coming up empty.  Cat walks over to a neighbour, tries calling, and there is no answer, it goes straight to voicemail.  I don't think anyone wanted to let her in, she was wearing a hoodie and looked homeless.

Now our gameplan is to break into the house.  The windows are impossible to open, without smashing of course.  We even tried picking the locks.  We've established we are NOT very good burglars!  There is a small basement window that Cat thinks she could squeeze through, but I am very doubtful.  We would need to pry the screen out.  Back into the garage, looking for some tools.  

With all our suspicious movements that blatantly appeared as if we were trying to break in, Cat would have been relieved if the cops showed up.  At least then we'd have warm shelter and water.  No such luck, so back to searching the garage for tools, I found a workbelt.  Magically inside one of the pockets is a cell phone. And it works!  

Hallelujah, we're saved!  Cat makes a couple calls, we finally get through, and learn the where-abouts of a spare key.  It works, we return to the land of plenty, Cat has a bite to eat, and all is well again.  Far from having been in dire circumstances, it gives a small taste of being without, even if it was just for a couple hours.  Testing yourself, new perspectives, they're good things.