Stupid is as stupid does Part II

I'm a moron.

On the coldest night of the year, with the wind bending my four-story Blue Spruce trees, I left the door from my kitchen to the unheated mudroom ajar (insert "open").

Throughout the night, the wind-chilled -25 degrees refrigerated the mudroom. I can picture the arctic air seeping into the kitchen and weaving down the hallway to the only thermostat on the first floor. I could hear the furnace blasting away at my ignorance. Could I be any more careless? Oh yes.

I brought Bailey into the mudroom and let him out into the backyard. When I went to head back into the kitchen, I couldn't open the door. The night before, as always, I'd locked that door and somehow the locking mechanism held fast (insert "I pushed the locking button when I went out").

I'm no dummy. I sprung into action. I turned on the gas stove in the room to keep me from freezing to death in the next 2 minutes (uh?) and weighed my options.  I thought about having to run to my neighbors for help. I pictured myself skipping across the street to the Sullivan's house in my pointy-toed slippers from Kazakhstan, a gift from Jan's parents.

Flashback. 1957.

I'm 4 years old. It's winter--or at least in this version of the story it is. Somehow, I'm alone on the first floor of our house on Lincoln Avenue in Rumford. I probably came down to watch Saturday morning cartoons. I decide it would be a good idea to head out onto the porch. I close the door, look up and down the quiet street, and head back in ... again, the door is locked. I pound on the door, but everyone's sleeping on the two floors above.

Our home on Lincoln Avenue in 1957 is a duplex. Our neighbors, the Mayer's, are awake and hear me. I'm rescued. In my mind today, they treat me to a nice breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup and a big tumbler of OJ....    

My blue slippers...

My 2013 plans do not include showing off my slippers on Prospect Avenue. I could climb over the 60 bags of pellets in the front hallway and dig through the bags leaning against the kitchen door to find the door knob, and slip open that door, tearing away all of the insulation I have stuck in and around the door frame. Or! I could see if there was anyway I'd left the second-floor door unlocked from the sports room to house.... I had. I'm in.

Another lesson learned.