Sometimes I Really Miss Dial Tones

So I'm not sure why, but for some reason no one has a key to my sister's house except the maid. (And before you start to judge, my sister isn't some crazy rich lady who has a maid.) (I mean, she has a maid, but only because the whole town rallied around and demanded she get one lest they condemn the house for too many unmade beds in a house that only houses two people. She's not dirty, my sister, she just doesn't like to clean.)

Anyway, so I've been using the spare key everyday to get into the house because no one seems to remember that there is such a thing as making more keys, so instead we just sort of live life on a whisper and a prayer that someone will have remembered to put the spare key back in it's hiding spot so we can get into the house. You never know if you'll be able to get in when you want to, which sort of makes me feel dangerous.

"Can I get in the house today for lunch? No one knows."

But yesterday I was at work at 6am and left at 6pm, and by the time I got home, I was so thrilled with myself for remembering to put the spare key back I hugged myself a little in the car. Then I practically ran to the key, then shoved it in with all the enthusiasm of a teenage boy about to do it for the first time, before it stopped cold and sort of bent against nature. Wrong hole. I tried the top lock - nothing.

This isn't funny.

I tried again, and again because I'm not a quitter, before I realized it . . . my rich, crazy sister's maid locked me out of the house.

Naturally I grabbed my cell phone to call my sister and find out when someone would be home, but I had been using the GPS app thing all day to walk around the block to see if it would work correctly (it did!) and my m.f.ing battery was dead!

I just stood there for like five minutes because I had no idea what to do. How do I call people without a cell phone? Pay phones? Do they even have those anymore? I know they have them in Baltimore in the projects, because that's how they catch drug dealers - but I haven't seen a pay phone in years!

Finally, I got in my time machine and took it to 1998, where there's a pay phone on every corner and hair spraying my bangs was still sort of passable as a look.

Actually, I took it to the gas station and there was a pay phone there! I was so shocked I jumped up and down a little then ran over to it and kissed it. Then I got AIDS.

No, I didn't. But it was sticky and weird, and I left my sister like seven voicemails screaming at the top of my voice like a lunatic, because I was worried she wouldn't be able to hear me through the tin-can-like pay phone, that was all crackly and had that background radio noise that landlines have, so I was all, "BECKY! THIS IS AMY! I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME. I'M IN A PAYPHONE. (I wasn't in one, but I was scared of the phone and not thinking right) CALL ME BACK HERE. I'M LOCKED OUT OF THE HOUSE. I'M! TALKING! TO! YOU! FROM! A! PAYPHONE! WHAT THE F*&K!"

Anyway, I got a hold of my mom, she called my sister and discovered no one would be home for a long time. So I was back to plan B. Break-in time.

Now, I've climbed through the window once before, but it was after my ten year High School reunion and I was hammered, and Gige was hammered, but she was there to help push my butt through the window, uncaring that I was about five seconds away from breaking my pelvis because for some reason all the windows in Becky's house only open to about six inches high. Like a prison.

It took like forty minutes, and a break to eat some Taco Bell after my reunion, so I was not looking forward to it. This is what it looked like the first time I did it:

It was uncomfortable, and I'm not even sure how my six foot one frame made it through an opening the size of a loaf of bread, except that the alcohol must have made my bones sort of Gumby-ish.

But somehow, magically, last night - after I'd braced myself for a broken bone or two - I made it in with absolutely no problem at all. It was like I'd Alice in Wonderlanded myself through the opening.

I almost wanted to go back out and do it again, just to prove I could, but I didn't want to risk it.

And then two seconds after I slid into the house the Math Teacher came home with the key.

Of course she did.

It was kind of nice though, having to use a pay phone, it was like when you were a kid and it was so fun to pretend to use those old fashioned phones you have to talk into one part that looks like a tulip and hold the other part to your ear while wearing a monocle.

I might just try it again. Get all hair-sprayed up and head to the gas station to make some phone calls. Only this time, I'm bringing some hand sanitizer with me. Because I love nostalgia, but just with less stranger goo.