Sunday 3 June 2012

The One About the Keys . . .

Back when I was in sixth form, oooh over ten years ago now, my Mum and Dad went on holiday with my brother and my sister and I stayed at home.  Well at 17 and 15, we felt we were too old to be going on holiday with our parents, so instead we had two weeks where we just chilled at home, oh and looked after our cat Poppy.  Oh and before you ask, no there weren't any mad parties.

Mum left us with a fully stocked cupboard and fridge of supplies, but we needed to go out one morning to get necessities like milk and bread.  So because it was a nice day we decided to walk into town to the supermarket to get them.  As we were getting ready to go, as the next day was bin day I emptied the kitchen bin and put the rubbish out.  My sister, being sensible put the alarm on the house and pulled the door shut behind her . . . big mistake!  She thought I had the house keys, and I presumed she had them!  Unfortunately we had one of those doors that once it's closed it's locked tight and you can't get back in.  So, we were locked out!

We did the only thing we could think of . . . we walked round the corner to my mum's friends house and explained our predicament.  They got out their yellow pages, and let me use their phone to ring a locksmith.  (This was well before I started carrying a mobile with me wherever I went - in fact that didn't happen until I went to university!)  So we went back to the house, sat on the doorstep and waited for the locksmith.  Did I mention that it was a nice sunny day?  It would have been a lot worse I think if it had been raining, but then if it was raining we probably wouldn't have been going out in the first place and none of this would have happened!  You could think about things forever going 'what if?' couldn't you?

When the locksmith arrived, his best suggestion was to take one of the window panes out of the dining room, the bay window at the front, for me to climb in to turn the alarm off and get the key out of the front door.  As it was the only option, we had to go with it, and because I was the eldest, naturally it fell to me to do the climbing, although my sister was smaller than me at the time (she's taller than me now!) and perhaps she should have gone in! Luckily my Mum had left us with emergency money so we were able to pay the locksmith.  And when our parents next rang to check in on us, they weren't too cross as all about what had happened.  Probably because with two teenage girls on their own for two weeks, we could have got up to a lot worse!



Thanks to my sister for reminding me about this story today, because I had been really struggling to think of anything to write!

This story is brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday.  Why don't you hop on over to her blog to read lots of other stories today.

15 comments:

Lynn said...

It sounds like you coped very well with the situation - I not so sure I would have know what to do at that age!

Lou said...

The exact same thing happened to me when my parents went away. they never left me an emergency fund though so i had to get a friend to take a window out! Great memory x

WendyB said...

Nice story to be reminded of Gemma. My two DD's are similar in age but I dread to think what they would get up to in two weeks lol

Alison said...

Great story Gemma!
Alison xx

Alana said...

Fourtunatly I have never been locked out....but I have been locked in a loo!! Great story, I hope your parents weren't too annoyed.

Abi said...

He he! This made me laugh cos the same thing happened to us on holiday last year. Thankfully we had left a window open!

Unknown said...

Oh dear, I have done this as well. Except we had to break the window to get back in. I chose the smallest window in the house to break. Thankfully it wasn't too expensive to replace it :-)

Sian said...

Well I'm very glad that your sister had a great story suggestion! Wow, your Mum must have thought you were two pretty responsible teenagers though - I'm positive my mum wouldn't have left me at that age lol

Brilliant story, thank you!

furrypig said...

I remember 'breaking in' to our house with my mum on several occasions when she left her keys indoors! Before the time of double glazing and all the locks on windows we often left windows open thank goodness!

scrappyjacky said...

Well....it did show your house was not easy to break into!!

Becky said...

Excellent story! I managed to 'prang' my Mum's car when I was left at home when I was 17 (I had passed my test!) lol!

Missus Wookie said...

I did that once and thankfully could send a small child in through a slightly open window. Realized after I'd watched her go in that there was a neighbour peering over the street fence probably wondering if they should ring the police...

Susanne said...

How lucky that you knew exactly the neighborhood friend to seek out - it's often hard to be level-headed in those types of situations.

Irene said...

What good girls you were! Thank goodness you were able to afford a locksmith and how different the story could have been. Like Louise's comment about taking a window out. Such a good story.

Ginger said...

Funny - I my sister gave me a story this time round too :) I loved reading your story and was happy to hear you made it inside ok :)