Ruining the day, saving the day, and Robin Hood

Can you guess which of the above four items nearly ruined my day? How about which one saved the day?

If you guessed the LG Vu cell phone to answer the first question, then you just won...a big virtual high five!

If you guessed the key to answer the second question(obvious answer, right?), well, you just won a third of a virtual high five because Question #2 is a trick question. The key, the sick puppy, and the sonic cup saved my day (in that order). Well, not the cup, but the little bitty red straw you see sticking out of it in the top left hand corner of the picture. That's right, tell the straw thank you.

Now, to explain:

After getting off work at ILS, I called an absolutely amazing person (*A-ap*) to just say "hi." Well, I never can "just say hi" when I call this person, so before I knew it we had talked me all the way home, into my house, out the back door with my pup, and back up the porch steps to the door again. When I went to open the door, I realized the lock had stuck in the lock position again. No big deal, thought I, I'll just whip out my handy-dandy key and open 'er right back up.

Only, no amount of patting or poking myself presented the house key. I had conveniently left it sitting on the kitchen counter, not thinking, as I was in deep conversation with A-ap.

I called my landlord, embarrassed and apologetic for my carelessness, and she came in a jiffy to unlock the front door (hence, the house key saved the day!).

...but, then, to the surprise of us both, even when unlocked the door would only open a couple of inches! What in the world is going on? I thought. As I started to examine the front door, I realized I had, out of habit, locked the chain lock across the top. My landlord and I both tried all we could to open the door, but the chain lock wasn't budging and all the tools we used (including our hands) either were too bulky or too short to unlock the door. As I continued the struggle in the front, my landlord went around to the back door with a screwdriver and tried to break into the back door.

I was starting to feel safe about this point. Seriously, if two girls with tools couldn't get in, then my little ego decided nobody could. My landlord left in frustration to go find some wire cutters to just cut the chain lock.

Stella threw up on the porch. Her allergies have really been acting up lately, and I'm sure the heat from being outside so long was getting to her. I wanted to clean up her mess and remembered I had a bag of trash in my car which contained unused napkins. I got the trashbag (thankfully, my car was unlocked). Inside the bag was a Sonic cup similar to the one in the picture above, containing a red straw just like the one in the photograph above. (hence, my sick puppy, Stella, saved the day). You may ask how. Don't worry, I'll explain it with many words, as is my way:

Seeing the simple and elegant red straw in the Sonic cup sparked an idea in this little brain of mine. That straw is long. That straw is skinny. I could push that chain out of its lock with this little guy. He can even be smushed in the door and I could still push on him to undo the chain!.

What happened next was something that doesn't happen too often: What I thought was actually right! (Hence, the straw saved the day).

So, what I thought was an invicible wall of metal and sheetrock turned out to be foolproof but not strawproof.

Thank you, Straw. You did a great job.

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I started my new job with ILS today and LOVED it! The only thing not so great about the experience was the movie the guys picked out to go watch: Robin Hood. I am ashamed to admit I even watched that movie. There would be no movie left if you took out the violence. Oh, except for the nude scene, yeah, that'd still be there. In that case, give me 3 hours of violence and take out the nude scene that really does nothing to further the plot. Oh, did I say plot? I don't think there was one of those, either.

Let's just say I was thoroughly dissappointed, ashamed, and embarrassed to watch something like that with my client and others from his facility. I only pray they were asleep during most of it (it seemed as if they were).

Otherwise, I enjoyed my experience to the fullest and cannot wait until next Saturday!