Skylar called me just as I was leaving the office the other day to very suspiciously ask me when I was going to be home.

It was suspicious to me, anyway, because when I told him I was on my way but needed to run an errand he seemed disappointed but then refused to explain why.

Eventually I got it out of him. He had locked himself out of the house. I don't know how he did it, exactly. But I had several sudden flashbacks to living with Rebecca when he admitted it and it only seemed fair to give him the same mean-spirited and demoralizing lecture I used to give her on a weekly basis.

I am going to be such a good parent if any of you die and give me your kids.

By the time I made it home, a rainstorm had moved in and Skylar was hiding under the covered patio in the backyard.

He followed me to the door, looking ashamed, AS HE SHOULD, and that's when I discovered that I also did not have a key to get into the house.


In my rush to leave that morning, I grabbed a key chain that inexplicably has a car key and a key to Lynne's house, but no key to my own home.

Fortunately I have given my key out to about eleventy hundred people. Unfortunately, as we called down the list, no one was available to get a key to us for at least an hour and a half.

I knew Lynne had a key, but I was also aware that she was taking a nap inside her house and had her phone off. Lynne is a flight attendant and does mostly long international trips so she's in a constant state of jet lag and usually doesn't even know what year it is.

Look.

I'm warning you right now.

You should never give me a key to your house. I will absolutely abuse the privilege.

So will Skylar, apparently.

Because the next thing I knew, we were literally tip-toeing through Lynne's home, riffling through drawers, and gathering up the surprisingly large collection of keys that looked like they might go to my house.

Several trips back and forth later we finally just gave up and collapsed into a couple of chairs on the covered patio.

The rain was letting up by this point. And that's when I remembered that I had left a window unlocked earlier in the day.

And before you read on, robbers, you should know that we are typically very obsessive about locking windows, we have an alarm system and a very vicious dog who has killed before and will do it again, and this particular window is very hard to reach.

But most importantly, the window is such that only a very small child can get through it.

Fortunately I had Skylar with me.













He didn't hustle to let me in, by the way.

And now, please enjoy a story from Jolyn Metro.


This time in Strangerville, Jolyn takes the Strangerville Live stage to read us some of her favorite middle school journal entries. Also, Meg’s children were meant to PERFORM.StoryPotato Water, by Jolyn Metro


~It Just Gets Stranger