Can it be a GOOD thing ... ?

My brain broke this afternoon.

I answered The Husband's Skype call from Mexico with this information. After patiently listening to me for a while, he suggested I go for a walk in the park with the dogs to clear my head. I meekly agreed.

He called me back half an hour later. I hadn't gone. He STRONGLY ADVISED I go to the park, and quickly.

Brain still broken (of course), I gathered up the dogs, my purse and my backpack and firmly shut the front door behind me. Which is when I realised that I had locked myself out of the house.

***

Two weeks ago, I locked F and myself out of the house as we began our walk in the park. He scaled the back fence and got stuck in the part we'd blocked off with chickenwire to stop The Evil Dog from escaping. I climbed onto the garage roof and jumped off into the backyard. I let F in through the side gate (he wasn't VERY stuck). We tried all the windows, hoping for an open crack. There was none. We tried jiggling the frames (or at least I did). No luck.

'Mum,' said F solemnly. 'We might have to break a window. Shall I do it?'
'NO!'

After twenty minutes and another search through my backpack, I found the key. Crisis averted.

***

Two weeks later, today, the backpack was well and truly empty apart from my purse. So were my pockets. And I knew, from recent experience, that the house was pretty inpenetrable.

This time, the garage rollerdoor wasn't locked. At least I didn't have to scale any rooves.

I didn't break a window, but I did break down the door.

If you try to break down your door, and the lock quite easily snaps off*, and the now-obviously rotting door-frame crumbles around it ... it means you can get inside. So, it's great news. At first.

But, if you live alone (apart from a seven-year-old) and it's that easy to break your door down ...

can it REALLY be a GOOD thing?



* By the way, I banged the lock back into the door-frame with a hammer and it's seemingly back to normal now, so it's not like I'm COMPLETELY without household security. Just in case you were wondering.