My own I Love Lucy tales

I read a lot.  I admit that.  And one of my favorite authors is Jill Shalvis, who has not only made me laugh out loud repeatedly when reading her books, but also her blog.  She claims to channel Lucy Ricardo and often confesses her most recent I-Love-Lucy moments.

Today, she asked us to share our own ILL stories.

After reading some of the incidents others had posted, mine seemed woefully tame.  And all revolving around the same things: keys to the new house.

There was the day I accidentally locked myself out of the house when I went to go pick up my oldest from school.  The twins were still at preschool, so it was just the two of us.  We'd bought the house less than six months before, and so some things still required thought...like making sure the knob to the back door was unlocked before I closed the door.  It turns regardless on the inside, so I just walked out and went.  Thankfully, my husband only works about five minutes away in heavy traffic (which, for us, is about ten cars and three horse-and-buggies), and I had my cell phone, so I called him to come let us in.  I put a house key on the key ring with my car keys (it's more convenient for me to keep car keys and house keys on two different rings).

However...apparently, when we made copies of the door keys, Hubby got my back door key instead of his front-door key (so he now has two of the original back-door keys, I think).  Not too long after the come-let-us-in debacle, I grabbed my car keys just in case I needed the house key to get in.  Now, the den door to the outside (also at the back, but not the official "back door"--that's in the kitchen) and the front door use the same key.  But the den door also has a sliding lock on it, which I usually kept locked.  Locked myself out of the house again when I went to pick up Large Fry, but had my car key ring.  Went to unlock the back door and...nada.  I knew the sliding lock was on the den door.  So Large and I trooped around to the front of the house and went in that way.

Those were both several months ago, while school was still in session.

This one, however, was only a few weeks ago.

I had a follow-up appointment with a dermatologist out near where my folks live (due to an emergency appointment while the kids and I were out there at the end of June, for a severe case of hives, which turned out to be an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, but I digress).  I am notoriously geographically challenged.  Whatever direction I'm facing is north.  I love our GPS, but it's been on the fritz, so I was going to try to update the maps and get it working again so I didn't have to rely on printed-out directions for how to get there and get home (I can at least manage that much) when I'm the only one in the car who can both drive and read fluently (Large Fry is only 7, after all).  So I'm outside, tearing the van apart, looking for the GPS unit.  It was Hubby's usual day off, but because we knew we were likely going to be traveling for a funeral later in the week (whole other story), he'd gone in that day so that we could make the trip.  And when he'd left the house, he hadn't unlocked the kitchen door knob.  He just left.

The kids were inside, and I'd left the kitchen door open, so no biggie.  It was still early enough in the day that it wasn't swelteringly hot yet, so I didn't worry about my nice, conditioned air leaking outside.  And my kids, whom I love, seemed to all think they'd been raised in a barn (I know better), because they NEVER closed that door when they went in or out.

Until that day.

Small Fry likes to know where her peeps are.  If she can't find you, and she needs to touch you (she's my tactile child), she'll come hunt you down.

So that's what happened.

"Mommy, where were you?"

"Out here, honey.  Cleaning out the van and looking for the GPS."

"I thought you left us."

"I wouldn't do that."

I dumped the bags of trash I'd gathered in the trash can, and went to head back in the house, GPS-less, and discovered that Small had closed the kitchen door behind her.

Okay, no biggie.  I still have two kids inside.  I banged on the kitchen door and was soundly ignored.  I *knew* they were in the den, so I didn't think anything of it, other than to get seriously annoyed.

I stomped over to the den door and insistently ran the doorbell.

THAT got a reaction.  I think the slider lock was still engaged, so I sent Medium to the kitchen to let Small and I in.

I was inside the house for several minutes before Large said something about answering the front door.

The poor DHL guy was standing on my front stoop, and probably had been for a good five minutes or more, waiting for me to come sign for a package.  Because my kids didn't tell me he was there, and I wasn't in the house to hear the front doorbell!  (We really need obviously different doorbell tones for the front and den doors.  Which we don't have yet.)  I apologized profusely to the man, and he was a very good sport about it.  (It helps that my kids are so gosh-darned cute.)

Geez.

Okay, so maybe that last one gets me in the running.