Memory 1:
There was an exceptionally blistery cold day with windchills reaching minus 40 degrees. I happened to not be well that day and stayed home from work, ailing, but nice and warm inside my little place. By about three in the afternoon, I was feeling quite a bit better and decided to venture to get my mail. I had two options: take the short route to the mailbox and step one foot outside the door or take the long route and walk 40 feet to the mailbox out the door I always use. I, of course, opted for the short path. I put on my snowboots, opened the deadbolt on the door of the shared house entrance, which I never use and shut the door behind me to conserve heat and energy. I popped out to the front step, found I had no mail, and quickly headed inside. I turned the knob of the door I had just shut moments before.
It was at that very moment, I realized that when I pulled the door shut, the deadbolt automatically locked. I had effectively just deadbolted myself out of that door. In a moment, I come to my senses that I have access to a key for my main door and venture out into the elements to fetch it. Blasted by the wind, I run all the faster. I find the key and scurry to turn it in the lock of my main door with my frozen mittenless fingers and enter into my outermost that is not heated. I think I'm home free and have avoided the catastrophe of the year, but when I go to open my kitchen door, Irealize that luck is not on my side after all - you see, I have another deadbolt between my kitchen and my outer room, which cannot be opened with a key - it can only be opened from inside the kitchen. Since I had not left for the day, I had never unlocked the deadbolt.
I am frantic because I have no phone, no coat, no mittens, no hat, am in my pajama’s and am now not only locked out, but DEADBOLTED out!! Visions of freezing to death appear in my overactive imagination until I come to my senses and gather my wits about myself. I ended up running to the neighbor I met a while back who does daycare. She took me in and graciously allowed me to use her phone and phone book. I called my landlord's place of employment because of course, his cell number was safely stored in my cellphone which was locked into my house. I request to be transferred to him, and the lady who answered the phone said he was out. I explained my predicament and that I did have his cell number, but it was locked in my house. She would not give me his number. So I requested that she call him and tell him, that he needs to call me at the neighbors and that it is urgent. Eventually, he called me back and was soon on his way.
The kind neighbor-lady tried to feed me cake, which I declined, but did loan me mittens, a coat, and hat for when it was time to work with the landlord on breaking into my house. He managed to get into the window that is above my shower/tub in the bathroom from my steps that lead to the basement (which are accessible from that outer room). My landlord initially contemplated jumping across to the window ledge but with my encouragement did not. Instead, I went back to the neighbor and borrowed a step ladder, which the landlord used to balance precariously between the bathroom window ledge and the flight of stairs. He used the ladder as a bridge, crawled inside my bathroom, and unlocked the deadbolt from the inside. I then returned all of my neighbor lady's things along with a squash and loaf of home baked baguette bread - a paltry repayment for her saving my life.
Memory 2:
Part of my lease states that I am required to shovel snow off 1/2 of the sidewalk. The upstairs tenant shovels the other half. I certainly don't mind the shoveling too much, as it is nice to be active and outside, so pretty promptly, if the snow has finished, I will go out to shovel. So one morning, I'm out scooping the fluffy three inches that had fallen the night before (I was still in the honeymoon phase of shoveling for the winter) when an older neighbor dressed for the arctic comes around the corner with a snowblower. He leave the machine running and walks toward me. I greet him warmly and his response is, "If you wouldn't be so goll darn fast, I'd blow you out." Later that day, I called my neighbor lady who saved my life and asked who he was. She told me, along with a great ten minute story of neighborhood news. She informed me he would not take money. I had baked bread that day, so I decided if he wouldn't take money, I would try to force feed him homemade bread. He accepted the bread, because while he doesn't take money, he informed me that, "I can never turn down home-baked bread, as it reminds him of the fresh bread growing up." So each time the snow would fall and he would blow me out, I would bring over a loaf of bread.
It was a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. But then Christmas came round, and I left for home a day early because the forecasters were predicting a huge storm. All my coworkers at work made me paranoid that I was not going to make it home and I even bugged out a day earlier than I had planned. And oh did it snow that week/weekend!!! When I finally was venturing home, the roads were still ridiculously horrendous and travel that typically takes me 2.75 hours took me closer to 5.5 hours. You see, the TWO feet of snow had been weighed down significantly with rain and ice, so naturally it would take a while for the roads to get better. Many people had also been reporting that the snow was unable to be blown, as it was too heavy and wet. So all the way back, I had the same thought replaying in my head: If the snow was too heavy and wet to be blown, that means a) my kind older neighbor shoveled all of the snow by hand because he felt obligated based on my influx of bread or b) all two feet of it are waiting for me to shovel. I dreaded both options, but if having to choose one, I hoped for option b and planned to shovel all night.
Aren't neighbors wonderful??
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