Christmas Day +2

Back to work. It was a short break, but it was an awesome celebration with family. I spent four days kicking back in Abilene. Despite the location, it was still fun.

An interesting thing happened Christmas eve. My parents had retired for the evening, and I was half reading my book/half watching a Christmas Eve church service on TV. I noticed a certain familiar fatigue taking hold of my body and knew that it was time for bed. Instead of proceeding directly there, I took a circuitous route through the kitchen. There, I filled a glass with water and drank. That's when I noticed the lights. Out the window beyond the breakfast table I could see Christmas lights adorning a fence. I thought it would be nice to venture into the back yard to get a better view and perhaps stargaze a moment or two before finally allowing visions of sugar-plum fairies to dance in my head.

My parent's house has changed a great deal from the time I lived there. A large percentage of those changes have happened in the past year. Since I'm there infrequently, I'm not yet accustomed to the new rythm of the house. What I'm about to reveal illustrates this point.

Already dressed for bed, I walked out into the cold night air and pulled the back door shut behind me. After walking a short distance out on the grass, a sense of dread descended upon me. A small and distant voice within my head began to repeat a warning my mother gave about the back door from the last time I was home. Returning to the door, I confirmed my fears; it was locked. It's around 11:45pm. I have no phone, no keys, no shoes, not much clothing, it is chilly, and my parents are sound asleep.

I am confident that making noise at the back door will go unnoticed, which means that I must go the front door. I can take one of two paths to get there. To go around the west side of the house requires that I traverse a rock garden replete with various cacti and full of tiny, hard stones. To go around the east side requires I enter a dark path between the rock fence and the house lined with small trees and make my way over the flower garden; in summary, the perfect environment for those nocturnal arachnids. I choose the west path. I assume Aragorn would have done the same.

I begin rapping on the front door and ringing the doorbell. There is no immediate response. I notice the neighbors arriving home and briefly contemplate asking them if I could use their phone. I don't know them, however, and choose to consider them only as a last resort. My knocking continues. Eventually, I settle on a morse code-like doorbell medley to which I'm sure a parent will respond. Twenty mintues later, my father groggily opens the front door. I apologize and hastily go to bed.

But there was much laughing the next day as my mother related this amusing tale to the rest of my family. I leave you with this wisdom; never leave home without a key.