Dear Jessica Brennan,
You learn a lot about yourself when you’re standing on the front porch in -13-degree weather, realizing you have just locked yourself out with no keys or phone, coat, shoes or, well, friends. They’re all somewhere else, being sensible and warm.
This happened to me a few nights ago when I changed the batteries in the keypad thingy we installed to make things safer and easier.
There were no neighbours at home, the code wouldn’t work on the keypad, and it was blowing snow. What would you do? Would you walk shoeless in six inches of snow to the backdoor and put the code in there? That’s what I did. But, the last person out had double-locked the door when they left, so while the code worked, the door wouldn’t open, and I had to trudge to the front door again with frozen feet, pounding the code in over and over like a rhythmic anthem to the first storm of 2025.
I’d love to tell you a heroic story about how I stayed calm and cleverly got myself out of this mess, but honestly, I bawled like a petulant five-year-old until all the goddesses of the realm either took pity on me or got well and truly sick of me and the code finally unlocked the door.
Before you feel bad for me, imagine how funny it would be if this exact thing happened to George Costanza.
Love,
Mum xo