breaking in.

Sometimes I think back to my high school days and think, “Man, I don’t have any cool stories…”. My college friends tell me these crazy things that they did like throw big parties in the forest or take a road trip to someplace random just for kicks. But then these memories come flooding back and even though they aren’t insane and daring, they’re still pretty damn funny.

For instance, my best friend through high school and I were pretty dumb. We weren’t very good at communicating with our parents, seemed to be breaking curfew more often than not, and partook in a lot of scheming of plans that always managed to fall through. My mom will probably read this and think “really?” Yes, really. But you didn’t notice because a) teenagers generally can’t communicate with parents b) “breaking curfew” as in by five minutes and c) of course teenager plans fall through. So not only were we dumb, but we weren’t the slightest bit rebellious. But I like to pretend.

Anyway, I can recall this one time when my friend and I drove to my house after school to get ready for some sort of sport event. We had to get prettied up, of course. As we got into my awesome maroon Mitsubishi Expo to leave, I realized I was no longer in possession of my keys. We laughed because everything’s funny at sixteen. I attempted to re-enter my house to look for my awesome camo lanyard only to realize I had locked myself out of the house as well.

Obviously we panicked. There was no way we were going to be late to the game and miss watching the guys pretend to warm up when really only focusing on how long they can flex their arm muscles, seemingly oblivious to the crowd of giggling girls wearing too much eyeliner. Whoa! Sorry about that.

So we circled the house, pushing on windows and wiggling doorknobs to find a point of entrance. Nearing defeat, an idea occurred to me. My little house had a semi-dilapidated greenhouse that attached to the dining room through a set of doors. I remembered a little window at the end of the greenhouse, the only one with a screen, and decided that would be our ticket in. I ran to the garage to fetch a box opener, my adrenaline pumping at the deed I was about to do upon my own home.

I carefully wiggled the piece of wood off from covering the screen and hastily cut a few slices around the edge of the screen, somewhat like a doggy door, and motioned for my friend to crawl through. She looked at me like I was nuts but I defended myself by reminding her it was my house so therefore my rules. She obliged.

I remember urging her through despite the mass of cobwebs and dead beetles that prevented a smoother entrance. I even gave her legs a little guidance as they were waving sporadically halfway out of the hole, but she didn’t appreciate that and responded by kicking me in the ribs. She finally made it through, Indiana Jones style, and entered the dining room. The keys were retrieved successfully! I then realized I had to cover up my breaking-and-entering evidence. I resorted to using some duct tape, replacing the wooden slab, and piling a few odds and ends to block the proof.

We made it to the game in record timing! We told everyone our awesome story and shared a few high-fives at the expense of our rebellious deed.

It took me about a month to confess to my dad that I was a vandal. I sheepishly pointed at the hole in the screen after leading him into the greenhouse. He looked at me as if I was half-“special”, half-ill-bred and informed me of the spare key stuck to the back of the door to the garage. The garage I entered to retrieve both the box cutter and the duct tape. The garage my car was parked right in front of.

Our story wasn’t so cool after that.