The Monday To End All Mondays
Monday, August 10. Roughly 11:30am.
I arrive home from my bf’s (yes, it’s 11:30. Whatever. I slept in. I’m a lazy sack of trash) and pull into my driveway, locking the automatic gate behind me. I exit the car, gathering all my belongings to bring inside (my overnight bag, a crockpot, some groceries, my laptop, whathaveyou). My dog roams the grounds, taking her late morning pees and poos.
I unlock my back door, leaving the keys in the door handle lock. I lock my car as I won’t be needing to go back inside of it today. I make my way into my house and set everything down and even manage to put up my groceries before realizing Cece didn’t follow me inside and is lolly-gagging.
I head back to the back door and yell for Cece. She doesn’t come (bitch). I pull my keys from the door handle lock, but not before jiggling them left and right a bit. As I step outside to get Cece, a passing thought flashes through my head: “Did I somehow just re-lock my door? Nah.” I pull the door shut behind me to keep flies out and call for Cece. As she begins to make her way over to me, I turn back to open the door.
It’s locked.
No. No no no. No please no. I quickly realize three horrible truths: 1) My phone is inside the house. 2) I’ve locked my car, which means I can’t even open my back gate to get out. 3) Cece and I are literally trapped in the backyard.
Because I’m not thinking straight, I go to a side window of my home that I think I’ve somehow left open (literally, this makes no sense. I was panicking)??? Like, I’ve been gone the entire weekend and, in my moment of desperation, tell myself I left the screen open to let 100º heat waft in while I was gone? I think to myself: “I can just punch through the screen window and crawl inside!” Again—and I cannot stress this enough—I had lost my mind. I go to that window, fuck with the screen from the outside, and punch it, realizing I have issues because the window is fully shut and I just punched screen + glass. I cut my knuckle.
My place is completely and fully protected/fenced in when the back gate is shut, and there really is no easy way out. I realize the only way I can get out and get help is to jump my own fence and leave Cece to fend for herself in the shade. So, I hoist myself up the fence and make the jump in a dress, rubber Birkenstocks, and full ass underwear. I sort of land like a superhero and feel badass for a split second before realizing that I’m a super fucking idiot. I then take off down the street, headed toward Beatnik, where I know sweet, beautiful Lindsey (the store owner) will let me use her phone to get my extra key that only Whitney has a copy of.
As I approach the store, I realize they’re closed on Mondays. I start to panic even harder, but see Lindsey’s face mask and cell phone sitting on the cash wrap, so I knock and she’s there! I explain my situation, and she lets me commandeer her phone (angel). It’s at that moment I realize I’ve been destroyed by depending on my phone to remember everything for me and don’t have Whit’s number memorized. I first try to message/video call her from Beatnik’s IG account. Then I log out and into mine and do the same to no avail. I DM all my best friends and ask someone to send me her number. In the meantime, I try to call the only friend whose number I have memorized (Kelley), and realize I don’t actually have it memorized. I do, but it’s not there. I’m grasping for it, trying all different combos of the numbers, but none are correct. I give up briefly before it finally hits me. I call her, and she miraculously answers. She then sends me Whitney’s number, which I call and get no answer (I don’t blame her. Probably thought it was spam). I text her immediately following, to which she responds “OMG I’m in back-to-back meetings all day. Can you come get your key?” I explain that my entire life is locked inside my house, including my car keys. She wonders if my bf can come retrieve the key from her (he’s never been to her house), and LOW AND BEHOLD, I actually have his number memorized so I call him to ask if that’s possible. He says of course, asks for her address, and sets off to hopefully end this saga.
Meanwhile, my friends are DMing me like “How are you on IG if you don’t have your phone?” and I’m like “I STOLE LINDSEY’S TO USE” and they’re like “OMG.”
Like a knight in shining casual workwear, my bf goes to Whitney’s, retrieves the key (“She does this all the time,” she says to him), and pulls up to my house where he finds me sitting on the front porch, sweating bullets, and shoveling Trader Joe’s Jelly Beans down my throat (I ordered them off Amazon and they were delivered Saturday). Once inside, we head to the back to retrieve my poor dog who, because she’s perfect, has just been posted up on the doormat right outside the back door in the shade, waiting for Mama. She cries at the sight of me and HER bf (we share), I give my bf a small baggie of jelly beans to thank him, and he leaves.
I then make coffee at 12:45pm, have an hour-long Zoom call, and finally get to work at 3pm.
And now I’m writing this and it’s 4pm.
So, I’ll be up til midnight working. The moral of the story? MEMORIZE EVERYONE’S NUMBERS AND GET SEVERAL COPIES OF YOUR KEYS.
And that, my friends, is the Monday to end all Mondays.
xox,
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