Neighbors

So, I got to meet some new neighbors yesterday. I stepped out on my front porch to check how the hydrangea bushes are doing (beautifully, as far as I can tell), turned back around, and my door had gently swung itself shut. My automatically locking door.

As I stood their futilely attempting to turn the door handle, my thoughts ran something like this:

1. Keys? Right on the other side of the door. I can see them, but cannot reach them.

2. Windows? All the downstairs ones are latched.

3. A ha! I just gave my spare keys to Neighbors A two doors down!

4. Neighbors A, who are out of town. I know this because I'm watering their plants.

5. I'm watering their plants! I have their spare key! I can use it to get my spare from their house!

6. Their key is with my keys, right on the other side of the door.

7. Dumb despair.

8. Contemplating whether to go next door and introduce myself to Neighbor B, whom I haven't yet met, to ask if I can climb through her upstairs window onto the roof so I can try to break into my unlatched bedroom window....

At that point, Neighbor B comes out of her house on the way to her car. We exchange I-haven't-met-you-yet pleasantries, and I mention that I have locked myself out of my house. "Oh no!" says she. "And I don't have your spare, do I?"

"No," I say, "Neighbors A have my spare, but they're out of town. I know, because I'm watering their plants."

"Oh, I have a key to their house!" Hope blossoms. "Wait, no I don't. They have mine, but I don't have theirs." Hope dies.

- silence -

I'm about to resort to the window plan, when Neighbor B's face lights up. "Neighbor C has a key to Neighbor A's house!" I ask which one is Neighbor C's house, and she points to a woman also just coming out of her house, with a baby in her arms. Neighbor B calls across the street to Neighbor C that I'm on the way over, and I introduce myself to Neighbor C and explain the situation.

"Oh!" says Neighbor C. "Yes, I have their key. Hang on." She invites me in, where I chat with her baby while she rifles through a basket of keys and sundry items. "Here," she says, handing me three keys, "Two of these are to Neighbor A, and one is to Neighbor D. I'm not sure which are which, so just try them and see what works."

So I take the keys from Neighbor C and cross to Neighbor A's house. I try a couple of the keys, and success! I'm in Neighbor A's house. I then rifle through Neighbor A's basket of spare keys and sundry items (note: Neighbors A would be totally fine with this), and find my spare. I go to my house, open the door with the spare, fetch my keys, return my spare to Neighbor A's house, lock Neighbor A's house and return Neighbor A's and D's keys to Neighbor C, tell Neighbor B that her plan worked, and finally am back in my own house.

Whew.

That all ended up working out really well, too, because it gave me a natural way to ask Neighbor B if she would mind her indoor/outdoor cats wandering through my house occasionally to help scare away the mice. She was totally good with it.

I like my neighborhood.