Talking about the New Jersey home theater reminded me of a funny story. (Or at least I think it’s funny… but I have a weird sense of humor sometimes.) Not too long after our super-cool, immaculately-decorated home theater was finished, Rick decided he’d had all he could possibly handle of the great state of New Jersey. He got transferred back to Texas, and had to move before we’d had a chance to sell the house. So he packed up a U-haul with a good portion of our furniture and left for Austin, while I stayed with my parents in New Jersey and waited for the house to sell. I brought along my dog, Echo, who adapted to life at my parents’ house just fine. But my cat is quite a different story – the mere appearance of a pet carrier is enough to send her into a frightened frenzy of fluffed fur. So, knowing a major move across the country was imminent and not wanting to traumatize her further, she remained at my mostly-empty house, where I’d drive the three miles from my parents’ house every day to feed her and make sure she was still speaking to me.
Now, one of the other things we added when we built the media room was a lock on the door at the top of the basement stairs, which had never had a lock. And the door to the garage was halfway down the stairs, and it had never had a lock, either. So we felt like one of those doors into the main house deserved a modicum of security. And the doorknob on the basement door needed to be replaced anyway, so we just bought a knob with a lock at Home Depot. I always locked that door and went out through the garage after I’d visited my cat or taken care of anything I needed to take care of in the house.
So the house was pretty empty, save for a few random pieces of furniture and my cat. But the media room was still completely operational – Rick decided to leave all the equipment for the new homeowners and start over with different electronic doohickeys in the house in Texas. The furniture was gone, so any movie-watching had to be from the comfort of the purple-carpeted floor, but that wasn’t such a big deal.
One weekend when Eric was in town (which may have been during one of his “oops, I accidentally broke my hand on the job and now have six weeks of paid vacation” spells), we got together with Faisal and Dave and my dad and headed over to the media room. We’d rented what turned out to be a rather bad movie – I think it was called “On the Line” and it had one of the guys from N’Sync. (You know it has to be a bad movie when “boy band” is listed on the star’s resume.) While the guys settled in on the floor, I headed up the stairs to make sure my cat had plenty of food and water. And that’s when I realized I’d forgotten my keys – we were able to get into the media room through the garage, but I didn’t have any house keys with me. And of course my cat had already heard a commotion downstairs, and had begun to meow plaintively on the other side of the locked door. My dad was nice enough to run back to his house and get my keys, while the rest of us lounged around on the purple carpet eating Kit Kats. As soon as my dad got back, I unlocked the door, said hi to Allegro, and then we all watched the movie.
Now the funny part is, a couple weeks later, I was out and about running errands and decided to stop by my house before returning to my parents’ house. As soon as I hit the garage door opener, I remembered that I’d once AGAIN forgotten my house keys. But, not wanting to make another round trip, I went up the stairs anyway, thinking maybe I’d forgotten to lock the door and could simply walk in. But no, it was definitely locked. And my cat was already on the other side, yelling at me for once again leaving her alone in an empty house. So this time, instead of immediately running off to get the keys, I decided to try that little trick you’re always seeing on TV and in the movies – a credit card. I got one out of my wallet, ran it along the space between the door and the doorjamb, and – pop! – the door opened right up. My first thought was, “hey, that was cool! I broke into my own house!” My second thought was, “I never knew it was so easy for someone to break into my house!”
So, dad, and Eric, and Faisal, and Dave – I don’t know if you guys remember that night when I thought we were all trapped in the basement. Turns out all I needed was a credit card. I could’ve had that door opened in two seconds, and we all would’ve been watching the N’Sync guy movie a lot sooner.
Not that we would’ve WANTED to, of course…
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