Pajama Burgler

My husband posted this on his blog yesterday, and I thought I needed to add an explanation.

I received this email from my wife late last night.

Honey,If you are still up, I just wanted to let you know we need a new screen. It would also be good to put a spare key outside in case we get locked out… and could you leave your phone on so in case somebody broke in our house and tried to hurt us at least I could get in touch with you.

Me

I can just picture her tearing off the screen and climbing in the window in her pajamas at mid-night. This really happened.

Okay, he left out the part about how I went outside to get a book out of the car, and when I came back to go in, the door was locked. We have a couple of those doors where you can lock it from the inside, yet still open the door from the inside, but not the outside. I prayed, "Lord you are not doing this to me!! (I wondered if He was laughing thinking, "Sweetheart, I did not do this to you, but it is fun to watch). I prayed, "Lord please do not make me call the police from a neighbors house in my pajamas at midnight... and I would rather not sleep in the car."

Speaking of cars, I dug in all the cars for any set of keys because we sometimes leave a set in them because we have gone somewhere together, or, we just left them laying on the floor or in a drawer... I found none. The kids even have a set the like to play with that I know were in the car the past couple of days... no such luck.

So my next idea was to look for an unlocked window on the porch (we have a wrap around porch, so there were 3 opportunities... they were all locked. So I went to the front door and rang the doorbell incessently for about 5 minutes realizing that that was not going to wake anybody up on the second floor (remember my oldest child is 6). The only response I got was the cat staring at me through the window from the stairs and then looking up the stairs almost as if he understood my delima and thought, "would someone please come help this crazy woman."

I then went around and checked windows again just to make sure there were none unlocked, and then ring the doorbell again. I did this over and over a few times in desperation while I prayed, "Help me Lord!!" I then decided to check some other windows on the back... praise the Lord for a full moon, it made it easy to see the window latches on the back windows in the dark. I finally came across a window to my husbands office where one of the latches looked half locked and the other one unlocked. This window was my only chance before I climbed up on the roof. Praise the Lord also it was in front of the airconditioning vent and easy to reach.

I poked some holes in the screen where the latches to the screen were and tried to get the screen out without bending it. When I realized that was not going to happen, and I was not even going to be able to bend the screen, I thought, "buying a new screen is less embarrassing than going to my neighbors...", so I stuck a few fingers in those little holes and ripped the screen all the way to the bottom. I pushed on the window for a minute... and the lock, that was not quite half latched, finally popped up and I was in. I couldn't believe it! I almost cried.

"Thank you Lord that I did not have to face my neighbors and the police in my yellow monkey pajamas tonight."