Being a criminal is hard work

Crazy day yesterday. Home from work late… have to take the dog out… can’t believe we didn’t get the house we bid on… still haven’t planned anything for the wedding… lock the door on my way out… shut the door… oh, crap.

Locked out.

Walked around the house with the dog checking the windows (I know I always keep them locked, but just in case). The landlord wasn’t home with an extra key so I figured my options were to go to a neighbor’s house to call the Pretend Husband (and then wait an hour in a stranger’s house while he made his way home) or try to climb up to the second floor and shimmy through a tiny window I was pretty sure the PH had left unlocked.

Still wearing the black skirt and sweater I wore to work (although in the PH’s comfortable shoes instead of my heels), I dragged a ladder against the house and eyed its sturdiness. Not trusting the sagging ladder, I put it back and trekked over to the landlord’s house. I grabbed the ladder that was leaning against the wall of the house and hefted it back to our cottage. I can’t be sure, but I think the next door neighbor watched the entire thing and never said a word (or tried to help!)

Leaning the ladder against the cottage, I climbed up and tested the screen on the window. Unable to get a good angle, I went back down, readjusted the ladder’s position and climbed back up while Molly sat nearby with a look of horror. Getting to the top of the ladder, I crawled out on the roof of the porch on my hands and knees– which is exactly where I was when the landlord pulled into the driveway below.

Mortified, I quickly crawled over to the ladder and scooted back down. Thank goodness my landlord is the least observant person I’ve ever met and he didn’t actually notice the person in black on the roof trying to break into the cottage!

He lent me the extra key and made me feel better about my situation by telling the story about how he lost his car key the week before when he put it on the tire of another vehicle he was working on and then drove that vehicle off. He later found the key a mile away from his house.

And I learned something important from the experience: mainly, burglarizing a house is difficult in a skirt. Next time I’ll try to wear pants.