One freezing morning -- okay, it's never REALLY freezing in L.A., but to a California girl, it was freezing -- I realized that I didn't have any clean clothes. So I dug some not-THAT-dirty jeans out of the detritus in my room, soaked a clean washcloth in water, wrung it out, and took both items down to the garage. I tossed the jeans and the washcloth into the dryer with a fabric softener sheet, turned the dryer on to Touch Up, and went back upstairs to take my shower. When I was done, I was running a little late, so I ran back downstairs with my towel wrapped around me to fetch my nicely-toasted, hopefully somewhat-freshened denims.
My mom was a single parent, and with no man of the house around, she was very security conscious. So when I'd left the garage after turning on the dryer, I'd flipped the little lock thingy on the knob so that no bad guys could barge into the house while I was taking my shower. (They'd have had to go through Sammy, our Doberman Pinscher, first; but still, I locked the door, since he was really a scaredy-dog.) The lock had a feature that allowed you to EXIT the house without unlocking it, so you could get out in a hurry.
And I was in a hurry to get my jeans out of the dryer. Wearing my towel. And nothing else.
Yep. The door locked behind me. I was stuck in the garage with nothing but a dirty pair of jeans, a bath towel, and wimpy Doberman Pinscher. Now I was REALLY gonna be late for school!
Try not to panic. Try not to panic. I put on the jeans -- commando, obviously -- and draped the towel about my shoulders like a shawl. I peeped out the foot-door to the side yard and looked out the black wrought iron fence to the street. Anyone walking by the front of the house could see in our backyard and all the windows on that side of the house. But I had to risk it. I casually turned out of the door and wiggled the first window. Locked, of course. Security conscious, remember? Next window, locked. Slider, double-locked. Around to the back of the house: locked, locked, and... locked. Oh. My. God.
I was standing there at the back corner of the house, out of sight of the street, pondering my predicament, when you-know-what hit me. I had to go. Now what?
But I had the bigger problem of getting back in the house. So I shook myself, clenched, and said, "Not NOW!" I took a deep breath and sprinted back toward the gate and the stairs to the deck, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the slider into the family room had been left unsecured. I pounded up the stairs, now in ELEVATED display to the entire neighborhood, and frantically pulled at the slider handle.
No such luck.
I slunk back down the stairs, across the patio, and around the corner again to hide. I was hopping around in discomfort by now. I was desperate in more ways than one! I decided I'd have to try the front door, too. I continued around the house to the short wall next to the entry. I had to pile up some gardening apparatus to be able to get over the wall. It was a gravel side yard, and I was barefoot, half-naked, and BOTH sets of cheeks were a'quiverin'. I figured if I could pop over the wall, I could try the door really fast and either be in or back over the wall in a matter of seconds.
So, after checking the sidewalk once more for onlookers, over I went, snagging my towel off on the top of the wall. I snatched at the doorknob (locked, as I'd figured) and then realized I had no way of getting BACK over the wall! I repositioned my towel. Then I put my back against the house and my poor bare feet on the palm tree next to the front door. I chimney-walked high enough to grab hold of the wall, scraping any number of places in the process, and crashed back down onto the gravel, all the worse for wear.
I lay there desolately, catching my breath until my secondary problem asserted itself vociferously as my soon-to-be-primary problem. Just then Sam the dog wandered over to see what I was up to. He sniffed my butt, as they do. I sat up, clutching my towel, and considered Sam for a moment. What the hell. I took off my jeans and folded them atop the A/C box (since, when this was all over, I'd still need something to wear). With one hand laid atop the A/C like a ballet barre, I plied... and pooped in the gravel, just like Sam.
Then it was just a matter of walking carefully to the back of the house to the hose to clean up; I already had a towel to dry off with. It was mighty cold, but I was mighty relieved!
During my ablutions, it occurred to me that my mom would be coming home any minute. So I wrapped back up in the towel, put the jeans BACK in the dryer, and... waited. Not long after, Mom came out and asked me why I hadn't left for school yet.
"My jeans weren't dry," I told her, then grabbed them and snatched the door before it slammed.