Occupational hazard

I've been house/petsitting for the past week or so, and the whole assignment has pretty much been cake. Sure Lilly the intsy poodle has to go out every four hours, but I've truly got nothing better to do than sit around and wait on a dog, so that's not been a problem. And yeah, the fenceless backyard backs up to a wooded area that's rife with wild animals, which makes taking the dog out at night sort of frightening, but she's usually just as nervous as I am and always takes care of business and scurries back inside ASAP. Ok, and the back door is a little troublesome and won't latch unless you really yank it, but that's how the back door is at my house too, so I'm used to the extra effort. So like I said, cake.

I got up at 7:00AM last Thursday to take the dog outside before I left for my work out, but in the haste and fog of the morning I forgot to disarm the alarm before I opened the back door, so it started blaring as soon as I turned the nob. No big deal--I bounded to the front door, punched in the code, and took Lilly outside. I assumed all was well when I had not received a call from the alarm company after twenty minutes, so I put the entire incident out of my mind. While noshing on yogurt and a cup of coffee in my parents' kitchen a couple of hours later, however, the owner of the house called to let me know that the alarm company had not only called him, but had also dispatched the police to the property to assess the situation. Evidently, it takes a code and a "cancel" button to alert the alarm company that accidents happen.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch--I returned to the petsitting house to finish my article for work, went home again around 6:30 for dinner, and then the neighbor two streets over offered to let the dog out of the petsitting house around 8:30, so I was able to spend a large part of the evening watching LOST with my parents. By the time I got back to the petsitting house at 11:30 I was pooped and excited to go to bed early so I'd be fresh for my beau's arrival the following evening. I washed my face, changed into my PJs, flipped on the lights on the back porch to make the area a bit less scary, and carried the dog outside one last time, making sure to yank the troublesome door closed to keep the nocturnal creepy crawlies out.

Lilly took care of things quickly, so I scooped her up, walked to the back door, turned the nob, and...nothing. I was puzzled, but sometimes the nob sticks, so I set Lilly down and tried again with both hands. Nothing. I peered in the window and lo and behold, the door was locked and my stomach hit the floor. When the neighbor two streets over left at 8:30 she had locked and deadbolted the back door, but when I went out after her the door had swung open as soon as I unlocked the deadbolt because the door doesn't latch properly. And because the door just opened, I didn't even think to check the lock on the nob, so when I pulled it shut on my way out I locked myself outside.

So there I stood on the wide porch in the dark, fenceless backyard that backs up to a wooded area rife with wild animals considering my options. I couldn't drive the mile home because my keys were locked in the house. I couldn't call my mom because my cellphone was in the house, too. I couldn't knock on the neighbors' door and use their phone because it was 12:15AM and they'd probably just seen the cops visit the house fifteen hours earlier. I couldn't walk home because there are no streetlights in the neighborhood and have I mentioned the wild animals?

I spent the next hour checking to see if any windows or doors were unlocked, digging around in potted plants for spare keys, and jamming sticks into the lock to see if I could break in. And when none of that worked I was stuck with plan B--sleep outside with the dog on the porch until the sun came up.

I dragged a padded lounge chair into the center of the porch so that the neighbors wouldn't get suspicious and tethered the dog to it with a piece of twine that I found (the leash was also inside). I figured that if anything approached the porch, Lilly would bark and wake me up if I managed to dose off, and with that in mind dose I did. I woke up every hour instinctively to check for daylight, or whenever a bug landed on my neck or buzzed in my ear, but never because Lilly sounded the alarm (thank goodness).

I finally did wake up and see the sun at 6:15 and I took a moment to revel in surviving the night. The moment was short-lived, however, because just as I sat up in the chair Lilly began writhing in my lap and barking wildly. I peered around the column of the porch to see what was the matter and there he was--a coyote sauntering through the backyard a mere fifteen feet from where I'd slept. He looked at us and I grabbed Lilly's muzzle to shush her and sat frozen until he eventually moved on. Then I untied Lilly in a hurry, leapt up, and ran home as fast as my flip-flops would take me.