To preface, I'm an extremely heavy sleeper (as this story will clearly demonstrate!). I always told my husband that you could send a marching band into the room and I wouldn't wake up. He now thinks that we can send the entire Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (including spectators) through the room without a stir from me.
It was Halloween night. It had been a very long day for me. I had just returned from a business trip the previous day, and had hardly slept for three days. My husband (who's a chef) cooked me dinner, and I laid down on the couch and dozed off.
Around 2 AM, my husband went out on our back deck for a cigarette (since we moved to this house, we no longer smoke inside). Without a second thought, he closed the door behind him. Unfortunately, we have one of those doorknobs that you can open from the inside while it's still locked. He didn't think to turn the lock to the "open" position.
Living in Connecticut, it gets a little chilly at 2 AM in what is now offically November. And my husband was in his p.j.'s: sweatpants, a fleece, and slippers. So he rings the doorbell, hoping I will get up and let him in. Nothing. He rings it again. Nothing. He bangs on the door. Nothing.
Luckily, he does have his cell phone with him. He's obsessed with the "Brick Breaker" game on his phone, so he doesn't go anywhere without it. So he calls. And calls. He tried my cell (which is in my purse in the kitchen, which he can hear ringing but I, apparently, cannot). He tried the home phone (which, interestingly enough, is in the living room and sitting about three feet from me). No response. He yells into the answering machine. Nada.
He goes around to the front of the house where the living room is. Bangs on the door. Rings the doorbell some more, just for kicks. Bangs on the window. Zip.
Now he's getting cold. He calls the police. They tell him that, unfortunately, there's nothing they can do to help him to break into his own house. The advise him to call me and try to wake me up. He advises them that if it were daytime, he would have used up his cell minutes for the month already. They wish him good luck, and tell him to be careful.
By this time, every neighbor we have most likely knows my name, as he is screaming it like Brando in "Streetcar." Interestingly enough, no one calls the police. Or, maybe they did, and were informed that yes, they know about this man and proceed to tell the concerned neighbor, "Don't worry, we instructed him to break into the house. His wife is napping." Sensing the situation was under control, they would go back to bed.
At this point, he commences breaking into the house. With what, you ask? With the empty propane tank from our grill. Brilliant!
So, highly explosive battering ram in hand, he tries to smash in our back door. However, it is a steel door, so all he manages to do is dent it. Of course, he dents it enough to break the wood core, which then bursts out the side of the door and lodges the door solidly into the door frame. He tries to kick the door in with even less success. (He apparently doesn't realize that action films use special fake doors that would allow even Jessica Tandy to kick one in. Yes, I realize she's dead; that's how flimsy these special-effect doors are.)
Then he decides, "Hey, maybe I should break a window." Why he had chosen battering down a steel door before trying to break a window, I don't know. Just a case of whimsy, I reckon'. Propane tank in hand, he tries the windows in the back door. And the propane tank just bounces right off.
Kitchen window. Bounce. Bathroom window. Bounce. Home office window. Bounce. Living room window. Bounce. Dining room window. Bounce.
He now concludes that the windows have been made of some material not readily available on this planet. In this thought process, he does not think to break the 75 year old glass basement windows that would (a) crack if you looked at them too hard or (b) pop right out, frame and all, of the foundation.
For all his strengths, I have determined a logical, linear decision-making process is not one of them.
Desperate, he considers breaking the car window to retrieve the keys that are in the glove box. To my relief, he thinks better of doing this. Considering those are the keys to my parent's house, who live 60 miles away and really wouldn't have helped him get into our house. Unless, of course, he threw them at the basement window.
At this point, he tries to call his best friend, who lives two blocks away and has keys to our house (remember what I said about that logical thought process?) He calls the friend's cell phone, which goes right to voicemail. He apparently doesn't realize that most folks don't play games on their cell phones at what is now 3 AM, and they may actually shut them off at night.
Interestingly enough, he decides not to call his friend's home phone number. Nor does he think to walk over to the house and ring the door bell. In his defense, in his experience over the past hour, sleeping people do not respond to doorbells or calls to the home phone.
With no other course of action readily availaible to him, he seeks out his last hope: my parents. I think you'll recall from just moments ago, they live 60 miles away.
So, swallowing hard, he dials "Mom & Dad" on his phone. Luckily, I inherited my "deep sleep" gene from my mother, who happened to still be awake and playing on her computer. But my father, who would wake up if a fly landed on the bed next to him, answered the phone.
Husband: "Dad?"
Father: "Is everything OK?"
Husband: "I locked myself out and your daughter's asleep on the couch and won't wake up. I'm freezing."
Father: "We'll be there in an hour."
Lucky me that I was born with such easy-going parents. Lucky husband that they like him. And lucky us that they're both recently retired and get a kick out of the fact that they can nap all day if they want.
So my parents schelp all the way up to Connecticut (they live in New York). On the way, they come dangerously close to hitting a deer standing in the middle of the parkway. My father might be retired, but he still has cat-like reflexes and narrowly misses the deer.
So they get up to he house. They try to open the poor back door but are unsuccessful as it is firmly jammed shut. The following exchange ensues:
Father: "What did you use to do this?"
Husband: "That propane tank."
Father: "Are you nuts?"
Husband: "It was empty."
Mother: "My goodness, you could have blown yourself up!"
Father: "And it probably still wouldn't have opened the door."
Mother: "And it probably wouldn't have woken up your daughter, either."
So the family unit now proceeds to the front door. As soon as the door opens, I wake up (groggily, but still the eyes are open).
Me: "What are you guys doing here? What time is it?"
Father: "Your husband broke your back door. Don't worry, you'll probably only need new locks."
Mother: (handing two gift bags to me) "Here's your Halloween candy. Go back to sleep. Love you."
So now it's 4 AM. Husband is mad at me for not waking up, and I'm mad at husband for breaking the door. Off to bed he goes, and now I'm awake and can't get back to sleep, which will serve me well in a few short hours when I have to go to my local Home Depot and buy a new door.
Lessons learned:
(1) There's no need to shut the back door behind you when you step out for a cigarette and you have a storm door.
(2) I'm an even heavier sleeper than even I thought I was.
(3) Real doors & windows are a lot stronger than in the movies.
(4) Using an empty propane tank to break into a house is wrong in so many ways.
(5) Thank God for cool parents.
(6) I should probably cancel my alarm system, since it seems to be nearly impossible to break into my house.
