Channeling My Inner Sydney Bristow

Yesterday morning, I locked the front door and walked out, closing it behind me. It wasn't until I looked down at my keys that I realized that the car and house keys had been taking off of my classroom key ring. (When we drive together with my keys, Nathan hates all of my classroom keys brushing on his knees, so he always takes them off.) They were inside, just behind the door on the entryway table, and Nathan had already left for the day. I ran through the easiest scenarios of ways to get back into the house. 1) Get the spare key. But Nathan told me recently he didn't know where it had gone. 2) Call Nathan to come back and open the door. After digging through my purse, I remembered that I left my phone on my desk at school. 3) Go to the neighbors' house and call. But it was cold and early, not yet 7:30 a.m. Drat!

Lately, Nathan and I have been watching a lot of Alias.. a LOT. Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever. Nathan has awakened me in the middle of the night with spy sleep talk. "Hey! We've got to get out of here. The room is wired. You go... in ten seconds I'll follow." With the previous nights' episodes on my mind, I thought, "What would Sydney do?" She breaks in and out of all kinds of buildings, including maximum security prisons. I went around the house to the back yard, checking to see if by chance the patio door was unlocked. I scurried up the ten steps to the door. No luck. Then, I checked to see if any windows were unlocked, despite the fact that, after coming back down the stairs, they were too far up for me to jump through anyway. Aha! One slipped up easily, and I didn't even have to remove the screen, for it had been moved to the top half of the window. However, there was no way I could spider up the wall and crawl in.

Providentially, a mom of some kids I tutor came over last week to rearrange the furniture around in the living room. Where the telescope had once been in front of this very window just a few days earlier, two chairs, a small table, and a chess set were now situated. I reached my hand in the window and with my fingertips gripped one leg of the wood and rattan chair. Somehow... somehow, I managed to get the chair out of the window and onto the concrete patio outside. Then, I climbed up onto the chair and jumped through the window onto the living room floor, chuckling to myself the whole time. I knew that Nathan would be so proud of me for thinking like Sydney instead of running crying to the neighbor's house, begging him to come home from work to rescue me.

Despite all of this, I managed to get out of the house again and make it to work on time!