My Garage Door

Halfway through my daily walk, my wife drove out to met me.

“Mister, you are in big, big, big trouble,” she said.

Whenever she tells me that,  I rarely know what for.  But that is not nearly as important as how much trouble I am in, which is measured by the time that passes between learning I am in big, big, big trouble and learning why.

This time it was really bad, so I had to ask.

“What did I do now?”

“You locked me out of the house – ALL AFTERNOON!”

No, I didn’t.

What I did was lock the front door before going for a walk around the block. She was right about all afternoon though, because our block is six miles around.

“How was I supposed to get in?”

“With a key,” I suggested.

“Who carries keys anymore?”

She has a point. Metal keys are a thing of the past and my wife is a thoroughly modern woman. She carries a purse the size of Peru but can’t afford enough room in there for a key, instead she clips a remote to her car’s sun visor to get in and out of the garage.

Which usually works.

Until it doesn’t.

As she left earlier in the day, the garage door went up but it did not come down. Whenever that happens we justifiably blame the cats.

Around our place, the whrrrr and grind of a closing garage door becomes an irresistible lure for all the outside cats to rush in. As they scamper across the threshold, they break the electronic beam that jolts the door to a stop and sends the opener into a winking blinking fit of hysteria. It then becomes my job to rid the garage of cats before the door can be closed.

It is a ritual that neither party enjoys.

But this morning the garage door refused to go down. Instead the opener winked and clicked in total dismay and every time I hit the glowing button on the wall, the chain rumbled only a few inches before returning to its home position.

This was rather perplexing.

After hitting the button several times without result, I hit it several more times without result before resorting to cussing and stamping my feet, which only served as yet another irresistible lure for the outside cats to madly rush in again.  Eventually it dawned on me to disengaged the opener drive from the track and lower the door manually to keep the cats out.

I checked the alignment of the electronic eye and made sure nothing was binding the track – still, I couldn’t get it to work.

I was stumped.

So I did as I always do whenever I get stumped. I gave up. I taped a note to the door explaining the situation then locked the front door and took the dog for a two hour walk…. and that is when my wife came home early.

“You locked me out!” she repeated.

“You could have……” I started to say, then stopped myself.  When you are in big, big, big trouble, it is best just to say nothing and take your lumps.

“Give me your keys,” she said.

So I gave them to her.

She then roared off down the road.

By the time I got home, she had left again and locked the front door, I suppose to teach me a lesson – but with the garage opener disengaged, all I had to do was lift the door manually.

I found the problem, a sensor wire had jiggled loose from the back of the opener housing.  An easy fix.

When she returned later in the day, she didn’t ask how I got in and I didn’t tell her.  Whenever you are in big, big, big trouble, it is best just to say nothing…..

 

Author: Almost Iowa

www.almostiowa.com

40 thoughts on “My Garage Door”

  2. There are reasons we have keys hidden outside, ever since Peggy went away on a trip and locked me out. Fortunately, I had our RV that I comfortably lived with until her return! –Curt

  3. We keep a house key on the electronic car fob, so end of problem – although were it to come off, searching Peru might take a while.

    But it might be safer not to suggest this for a few days…

  4. I want to see a purse the size of Peru! I solved my similar problem with an electronic deadbolt on the back door. And I didn’t tell her how to reset the password.

    1. I want to see a purse the size of Peru!

      No you don’t, Mark, you really don’t.

      Imagine this:

      You are in the passenger seat. She is driving. The purse the size of Peru is in the backseat. Her phone rings. It is in the purse. She says, “Honey, would you grab my phone out of my purse?” It is not a question.

      [shudder]

  7. We don’t have cats breaking the eye, but when those things get out of alignment it is like a minor miracle getting them back in again. Fun post, Greg.

    1. I struggled with that once until I happened upon an excellent trick. I taped a laser pointer to the top of the eye then taped a piece of paper to the back of the receiver with a tab sticking up. All I had to do was center the little red dot over the tab on the receiver.

      It is genius like that which gets me assigned all sorts of chores. Not very smart of me, is it?

  8. Hubby did that to me once too. I was outside working and he took off to run errands for 2 hours and closed the garage door thinking I was in the house. Ordered a key pad for the garage door the next week. 😜

  9. Best she not know how you got in because then you would be in trouble for leaving the garage open to any criminal who happens to wander out your way. “There was a prison break in Mexico, you know!”

    1. I’d be more worried about Stan than I would criminals. If a criminal were to get in, all they would take would be Stan’s stuff. As for the prison break in Mexico. Things like that never worry me……but Iowans crossing the border? Now there is something to hit the panic button about.

    1. I have a 30X60 shed too. One would think that a good thing. I did when we moved in. Now it is full of stinky barn cats and stuff that is not mine. It is the bane of my existence.

      1. We have an old 24×48 oak barn and a 24×24 steel barn with 2 horse stalls. The old barn houses the tractor, that storage and a run-in for the horses.

  11. We always carry keys, but the front door has a mind of its own. Sometimes it simply won’t open, at which point husband continues to jiggle the knob while I open the back of the garage, open the kitchen, and walk through to open the front from inside. What I never understand is how he fails to notice I’m not still waiting behind him.

    1. I think that is called, the single minded pursuit of a solution. It’s why I will hit a button fifty or sixty times after the first time fails to achieve the desired result.

    1. I dare not mention the spare key, even in a story.

      “Oh? You mean the spare key buried under the snowbank that I have been asking you to dig out for the last three months?”

      Like I say, whenever you are in big, big, big trouble, it is best just to say nothing….

    1. I would never ask Stan to help fix an overhead door. He would fix it alright but then fill the garage with stuff that he doesn’t have room for at home. It kinda defeats the purpose.

    1. We have eight outside cats. When I called to schedule them getting spayed and neutered, I was told, “Don’t worry, they won’t get pregnant in January. Wait until the county subsidy kicks in during early March.” We got five fixed in March…..two were pregnant.

      Oh, the tyranny of mathematics.

  15. Oh my! A man who accepts defeat gracefully!! Funny, funny post. Love starting my day off with a laugh.
    🔹Ginger🔹

    1. Even though I don’t complain, I never accept defeat with grace. I prefer to flop on the floor and thrash my arms and legs. It has worked for me since I was two.

  17. This is too funny. I am famous for taking a walk and locking myself out of the house, thinking the side door to the garage is unlocked. Except it isn’t. So my husband, who works at home, has to interrupt his important business to come answer the doorbell when I return. I get the standard lecture of how I could freeze to death if he wasn’t home, etc. Like you, I refrain from pointing out that he is indeed home and I knew that when I took my walk. I’d like to believe I’d be more careful if he was not there to let me back in but who knows? He could find me frozen one day, not having the sense to seek shelter at a neighbor’s home.

    1. At least in my mind, one of the great mysteries of life is why so few women’s clothes are designed with pockets. If you don’t carry a purse where do you carry your keys or your cell phone for that matter? Out here in the country, a lot of women wear jeans which have pockets. Country girls rarely get locked out – but even if they do, they know how to use a crow-bar. 🙂

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