The Keys to Happiness

The other day, I came home with Sabine and realized I'd left my house key inside our locked apartment. When you're late for a doctor's appointment or have eight bags of fresh groceries that you just dragged up a flight of stairs with a toddler in one-hundred-degrees of summertime heat, this is really sucky. Especially when it has happened three times in three months.

What's also pretty sucky is in the past two months, I've rolled eyes all three times when our doorbell has rung because a neighbor is kindly returning my keys, which I left either on the mailbox, on the hood of my car or in the laundry room. I roll my eyes before I know they're ringing to return my keys because I'm usually in the middle of something or feeling antisocial. But the minute I open the door and see my shiny keys in the hand of someone, who has not chosen to simply unlock our door and burglarize or kill us in the middle of the night, I roll my eyeballs right back to where they belong and feel extremely grateful (and like a huge jerk for the eye rolling). I also feel dreadful because I know the minute I close the door, Kadin is going to shake his head, point his finger and give me a maddened speech about how ridiculously forgetful I am.

And on that note, I think you all should know that the other night, we were tucked away in bed at 10:30 p.m., when someone rang our doorbell. I pushed Kadin out of bed and told him to go look. But then I jumped out of bed after him, realizing he may need help or direction (because I always seem to think he needs my direction). We creep downstairs together and once we reach the front door, Kadin moves to open the door. I yank his hand from the knob and say, "No way! Are you crazy? You didn't even look through the peep hole to make sure it's not an axe murderer!" Suddenly the bell rings again, but longer and louder this time. We both jump. Kadin looks through the peep hole, but can't see anything because it's too dark. We part the kitchen curtains and look out the window to see what we can see. There's no one. Why would someone ring and then leave? Is someone hiding behind the bush so the minute we open the door he can wedge his way in and sadly, brutally murder our whole family? And if it was not that, but a civilized visit--and really, there's no such thing as civilized at 10:30 p.m.--why wouldn't they just announce themselves as we peered through the peep hole and the kitchen window?

We wait a little bit to see if we hear movement or perhaps another ringing of the bell. Nothing. We decide to turn off the lights again and return to bed. But naturally, before doing so, I board up the kitchen window with all three of the various sizes of cutting boards we have. Because, you know, a few cutting boards will definitely keep a murderer out. On that note, do murderers really ring doorbells? Probably not. But I'm not one, so how would I know how they roll these days?

I lay awake upstairs for hours, mentally planning our route of escape should the murderer find their way in. I will jump out the window first. I will probably break my leg. But I won't feel it because I will be too pumped on adrenaline and trying to save my family members' lives. Kadin will drop Sabine to me and I will catch her and hobble to safety, but not before making sure my husband makes it out the window, too, fighting off the murderer as he clutches to Kadin's arm or leg. He's wounded, but strong. He can make it, even with profusely bleeding limbs.

Finally, I fall asleep and have a dozen dreams that are as wild and exhausting as my imagination. When I wake the next morning, I immediately run downstairs expecting to find some sign that will prove we narrowly escaped a violent forced entry. From the inside, there's nothing. No cracked window, broken lock or dangling knob. But then, I open the front door--to find Kadin's entire set of keys dangling from the outside keyhole. When he'd come home the night before, he unlocked the door and because he was juggling too many things, he forgot to remove the keys and bring them inside. Our neighbor was ringing to let us know the keys were still hanging in the door.

As it turns out, the murderer could've just used the keys and let himself in. It also turns out that Kadin is just as ridiculously forgetful as I am, which means we're a match made in heaven--and that I won't have to listen to the maddened "you're dangerously forgetful" speech, accompanied by lots of finger pointing and head shaking, for a really long time.

Image via observando.net