Locked Out

Locked out

When my daughter was in hospital for a broken ankle my husband Max and I went to visit her and to pick up her house keys so we could look after her house in Richmond and feed her animal.

We left the hospital just as she headed into surgery so we knew she would be out to it for hours.

When we arrived we decided to have a cupper before we started so we brought all our gear inside including my purse with our car keys and Max’s wallet in it, locking the car as we went in.  

When we had finished Max went out the front to collect the mail and water the plants and I started to organise the food for the animals. I fed the cat, the fish and the rabbit who were all inside, then I was about to go outside to feed the two dogs when I thought I better close the front door, for the Dalmatian had a habit of pushing past you when you open the back door and rushing out the front one and then we would have a lot of trouble bringing her back home.

So that done I headed out the back door with her big dish of food. I just stepped on to the top step when a gust of wind blew the back door shut. I gave the dog her food and went back to open the door to get in but I couldn’t, I had forgot to take the deadlock off. I thought that is ok I will call Max and he can come in through the front door and let me in.

 Wrong again, when I closed the front door that was deadlocked too. So now we were both in a mess. I was locked in the back yard as the fences were too hard to climb and all the gates were also locked. Our car keys and phone and any identification to say who we were, were locked inside the house and it was starting to get dark and cold.

Max and I first checked the windows to see if any of those were open, but of course they were locked too.

What can we do next. It was time to Panic and that’s what I did, blaming myself. I should have taken the keys with me or I should have made sure that the front door was not deadlocked before I closed it, and I should have propped the back door open before I went to feed the dogs. Why was I so stupid? Max tried to calm me down saying “we will think of something” but by that time I was so upset I couldn’t think.

Even if we could get to a phone, who would we call, we couldn’t even call our daughter to find out if anyone had another key for it would be hours before she would be out of the recovery ward. We didn’t know any of our daughter’s neighbours but Max tried them but none were home.  I panicked again for here we were with me stuck in the backyard with nowhere to sit but the back steps with no cover of any kind. Max at least could do more than I could but without the car keys he couldn’t go far. We thought we could ring the police if we could get to a phone but what could they do. They might have been able to cut the lock on the gate and let me out (if they believe our story) but we still could not go anywhere.

The house was rented but we didn’t know what agency my daughter was with or even where they were. In desperation Max remembered there was an estate agency in the shopping centre a few kilometres down the road so he decided to walk down there to see if they were the one she dealt with, and also hoping they were still open, and if they were would they believe his story.

 With much dread I watched Max walk down the road. I started to panic again saying to myself “knowing my luck he would not be successful”. After what seemed like hours I heard Max coming up the drive and I rushed to the side gate to greet him, and I could see he had a smile on his face. Not only was it the right agency they believe his story for they knew our daughter well and recognised the description he gave of her. So they lent him their set of keys. What a relief;

I was so glad to hear that key turning in the keyhole. When the door opened I fell into Max’s arms telling him how sorry I was for causing all that trouble. 

All I wanted to do was to go home and go to bed so that’s what we did, dropping off the keys at the agency on the way.

We learnt a good lesson. We had another set of keys cut so every time we went to my daughter’s house, Max put one set in his pocket and I kept the other around my neck so I would have them with me if we forgot to take the deadlocks off again.

As someone famous said: “Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something”.