The Home Edition

Among other things, said in hindsight: I should have used a brick. Not: I should have used a locksmith...

But it began this way. We were geared up, in swimsuits, for our first trip to the city aquatic center for family swim. My keys were the only ones in the key bowl, and hubby was out by the car. In my defence, it was a logical assumption to make that he had his keys... But no, he was just applying sunscreen.

I was also distracted, telling Son that it didn't matter if the kiosk was closed when we got there, because we were going to swim, not buy candy. I was in full diatribe about how he really should focus on the bigger picture when hubby asked me if I had the keys.

So, all four of us are locked out. We have swimsuits, towels, an open car, and a bottle of sunscreen. And a chalk box, on the front porch. (Lurking out of sight is, of course, a brick.) It's like Apollo 13, but the weather is nicer and we can breathe the air. We check: no keys hidden anywhere. No open doors.

The kids suggest things like: We could walk to the pool! And: We could sleep in the car! We instead sit on the front steps and ponder the options. A locksmith? Hubby muses. Nope, he says. Too expensive. So, he decides to break the wee front window on the door to unlock it. What about the cost and time of replacing glass? I ask. No sweat, apparently.

I wasn't looking, and I assumed he was using the bottle of sunscreen (contents under pressure--that would have been my mistake) but it was the chalk box. A plastic thing, that spread the mass of impact and probably absorbed most of it too. On the second whack, it went through, and so did his hand. There was glass twenty feet inside the house, and five feet outside. Blood lavishly dripping. So, the kids missed the aquatic center. Hubby missed his tendon (barely) and had eight centimeters of stitches in four spots. And now doesn't have to swim for a couple of weeks.