Okay, so the title is a bit misleading.  I didn't actually have to "break" and enter... more like climb and enter.

On Friday, I locked myself out of our apartment.  I had just emailed my parents to let them know I wouldn't be making it to the Good Friday service because Buster had been a bit sick for a few days (I won't trouble you with the floor-mopping details) and I wanted to keep an eye on him.  I clicked send on the email, put my cell phone down on the coffee table, grabbed a flashlight, and headed out the door to go down to the basement.  (I had figured that since I was home keeping an eye on Buster, it'd be a great time to swap my winter clothes for my summer clothes.)

Key detail you need to know in order to fully picture the scenario: the hubby and I live on the first floor of a two-story, two family home.  We share the hallway with the upstairs tenants... but right now there are no upstairs tenants.

So I slam our apartment door and walk down the hall to the basement door.  As I approach it, I think, "Wait... no... I couldn't have just turned the lock before I shut the door... did I???"  A few quick steps back to the front door and a few jiggles of the doorknob confirmed: I was now locked out of our apartment, stranded in our hallway with nothing but a flashlight.

This was at 6:45pm.  No neighbors upstairs.  No neighbors home next door or across the street (and barely know the neighbors - just say hi to them, don't even know any names, so it'd be weird knocking on their door and asking to use their phone).  If I started walking, by the time I got to my parents' house (1 mile away), they'd already be at church.  If I kept walking to where the hubby works (half a mile past my parents' house)... well, I could have but that idea didn't sound enticing.  I didn't want to walk over an hour, so I decided I needed a better option.

First step: sit in the hallway and cry for fifteen minutes.

Second step: go outside and check for open windows.

Luckily, I had recently unlocked and opened the windows in the office-to-be-nursery to air it out during the early Spring weather.  Not so wisely, but very fortunately, I hadn't locked it when I closed it.

The window sill is about chest or neck high to me, if I'm standing on the ground, so the next step involved figuring out how to get in the window.  I had two outdoor folding chairs in the backyard, so those were perfect.  I grabbed one, unfolded it, stood on it and then thought . . . now what?

I realized that it probably wouldn't be wise (or even possible) to flop through the window on my belly, like would be my first instinct.  There is a very cushy armchair right next to the window, which was good, but it was covered in boxes of the hubby's stuff that needs to be sorted... even more so now, since I kind of had to push the boxes out of the way in order to be able to get on the chair as I went through the window.  Oops.

Eventually I figured out I could swing one leg up, hunch over, duck through the window, find my footing, and then pull the other leg through.  As I felt the process working, I cannot tell you HOW relieved I was to be getting back into the house.  To not have an entire evening go to waste as I sat in the hallway until 10pm, waiting for the hubby to get home from work.

First thing I did?  Go around the apartment and make sure all the rest of the windows were locked.  While I'm glad that one wasn't, I didn't want any windows unlocked unless I was home and purposely airing out rooms or just letting a breeze through.

Then?  Then I stood in amazement for a while, wondering if all that had really just happened.  Then I got back to business and started swapping out my winter clothes for summer clothes... but not before I made sure I had my cell phone in my pocket at all times.

I've already been told by two people that if The Force gets in trouble for breaking and entering one day, it's my fault because this experience taught him how to do that.  Great, thanks.

I once had a bad(ish)-but-in-a-funny-way Ides of March.  March 15th fell on a Saturday my junior year of college.  The details now are a bit hazy (as some of that time period is) but basically I left a party early because I had to get up for work at 7am on Sunday (I worked at a drugstore), only to be woken by a dorm fire alarm at 3am, still feeling the effects of the party I had been at earlier.  (NB: If you didn't go away to college, you have to imagine that middle of the night fire alarms are a common, but still annoying occurrence.  You get up, in your pajamas, wrap yourself in your blanket, and go stand outside, all bleary, with your friends until someone tells you that you can go back in.  On a night like this, you'd spend the time outside convincing your friend, no, you cannot go back to the party; you need to sleep for work.)

Then, after work the following day, I typed out the whole funny story for friends - except I ended up mistyping one of their email addresses and sent the whole tale to a very staid and nerdy classmate, who wrote back to let me know and thanking me for the laugh.  I avoided her for a week.  (Or more than I usually did.  She was the type of nerdy that looked like it didn't shower regularly, not the cool kind of nerdy.)

Okay, so anyway, it wasn't a terrible Ides of March.  But, you know, having to get up at 7am because you have to walk two miles to work by 8:30am on a Sunday as a college student is bad, period.  It was for me, anyway.  The cheery part was that Mike (best friend and thrower of said party I left early) got up early and drove me to work (and picked me up and took me out for coffee after my shift ended).  He's always been a great guy.

So I never fear the Ides of March - if anything, it makes me look for the funny little things that go wrong.  So far today has been fine.  The only issue has been someone practicing their drumming on the other side of the wall of the library/tutoring center I work at.  Yes, seriously - drumming.  I called to complain and they said it must be the Verizon guy doing work.  I told them that he should be complimented on the rhythmical nature of his work as well as his excellent cymbal use, then.

I know drumming when I hear it, people.  1 - I've been to a zillion concerts.  2 - My brother-in-law is a drummer.  3 - Who doesn't know the difference between drumming and telecom work????

Thanks, Ides of March, for that frustrating chuckle.

But a stranger today gave me an odd look when I told him I've been driving for almost 20 years.  He said, "You cannot be older than 24 or 25."  "34, actually - so, driving 17 years."  "I would never think that.  Good for you!"  So, Ides, seriously thanks for that.  Feeling young and springy now.