The Statute of Limitations Elimination

Sometimes the universe offers me creative opportunities to quench my introvert’s need for solitude.

After a late night at the Depeche Mode concert followed by an early run this morning, I found myself sleep deprived and in need of some down time today. To assuage this need, I grabbed my laptop, surreptitiously exited the sliding door, and settled myself at the table under our covered patio to chill, away from the three men in my house. This turned out to be a short-lived solution as, about fifteen minutes later, hubby discovered me and came out, armed with chips and guacamole, oblivious to my urgent need for peace. He joined me at the table and chomped away while I tried not to lose my mind (because I still haven’t figured out a polite way to tell someone their chewing may drive to me murder them). Eventually, my one-word, choppy answers sunk in, and he wisely vacated. He took our sons to Best Buy, and I took a deep breath and started to unwind.

Everything was perfection until I ran out of La Croix, walked to the slider, and pulled the handle. The door didn’t slide. Curious. I tried it again in case, weak from hunger, I somehow hadn’t tugged hard enough to open it. My original suspicions were confirmed. My husband, with his usual fervor for security, had locked the back door before he left. I would like to think this was inadvertent, but this is not the first time he has locked me out of the house.

Maybe eight years ago, when the kids were younger and exhausting, I escaped for an evening coffee with my friend, Lisa. I returned home a few minutes past ten and found the door from the garage into the house locked. I hadn’t brought a house key with me because my family was home. So, I banged on the door, slightly annoyed, and waited for hubby to open it.

I continued banging for 3 minutes, alternating between kicking it and pounding it with my reddening fist. No answer. With a rising level of annoyance, I got in my car and laid on the horn. That should get him. Nope. I opened the garage door again, walked around to the front door, and rang the doorbell about seventy times. No luck. I called the home phone repeatedly. I called hubby’s cell phone even more. No answer. It set in that my family had gone to sleep. With a noisy, whole-house fan running and ocean sounds on too, my three boys would be dead to the world.

I suppose I might have found the entire thing amusing if I hadn’t just consumed a grande latte and a bottled water, which had left me highly caffeinated and rapidly approaching saturation. It was ten thirty. What the actual hell? I walked through the side gate into the backyard and began to lob small river rocks from our landscaping up towards the second story windows in the rooms I knew might be occupied. The rocks were hitting both the siding and the glass panes before landing like golf-ball size hail on the flagstone patio and wrought-iron patio furniture below, yet not a creature stirred. In addition to my husband, I began cursing my dog. Some border collie. Here I was, violating her borders and storming her castle, and she was a non starter.

Options to awaken my sleeping family exhausted, I ducked back into the garage and closed the door resigned to my circumstances. The need to relieve myself of liquids was becoming urgent. I debated ringing a neighbor’s doorbell, but decided that ringing a doorbell at 11 pm on a Tuesday night might not be very neighborly. I toyed with the idea of checking into a nearby hotel because I thought I deserved it after this bullshit, but knew once hubby discovered I was missing he would be calling the police and hospitals desperate to find me. While the devil on my left shoulder urged me to do it anyway, the angel on my right shoulder convinced me that punishment didn’t fit the crime. Still, I needed a bathroom and wasn’t sure I was going to make it ten minutes to the nearest gas station. I considered urinating in the backyard (why not? the boys had) but knew the minute I bared my privates to the world a neighbor would open their sliding door to let out their dog and witness a full moon they hadn’t expected. So, I peed into a Solo cup from Costco in the privacy of our garage. Yes. Yes I did. And I’ve never looked at red cups the same way since.

Hubby did eventually wake up when our oldest got up to pee and, upon not finding me in bed to awaken so I could tuck him back into bed, notified his father of my missing person status. The garage light flickered on around 3:30 a.m. I had been sitting in my car, reclined in the driver’s seat, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep for hours. Steve opened the door, saw my SUV, and began to close the door again, assuming I must be somewhere inside. I yelled out pathetically.

“I’m here! I’m here! Wait!!!!”

The look on his face registered somewhere between relief and terror.

His apologies flew like rapid fire from a semi-automatic as I entered the door. I was too exhausted to bitch and went directly to sleep. The next day, when I was in a better mental space, I recounted my story. I told him I needed to blog about it. Feeling horrible and embarrassed about the whole mishap, he begged me not to. And so I didn’t. For eight years. But, I figure the statute of limitations on that deal ran out the minute he locked me in the backyard today.

I do crave my time alone, but I am starting to wonder if my family is trying to tell me something. I’m wondering if I shouldn’t get a lanyard to hold my house key around my neck. Just in case.