Broke In

With apologies to regular readers for the long cliff-hanger I will pick up where I left off: Locked out of my house.

At 1 minute past opening time I called the office of my property manager to explain what had happened, complain about it and demand that it be fixed before I returned that night. As luck would have it I talked, not to my property manager, but to my friend Brent, who sells real estate in the same firm.

I explained what had happened. I even started to complain, but my heart just wasn't in it. It was friend Brent, after all. So I cut straight to the demanding that he ensure I could get directly into my house upon my return from Job No 2.

"No problem," said friend Brent. "I'll go and do it in 5 minutes. I'll call you if there are any problems."

I smiled, relaxed and started joking about my bad night with colleagues. Now that the disaster was over it actually did all seem quite funny. Friend Brent didn't call, so I assumed that there hadn't been any problems. I considered checking with him as I left for Job No 2, but decided there was no point. The door would be open when I returned and the simple pleasure of my own shower, bed and tootbrush awaited me there.

At about 9:15 pm, while waiting for a train home after job No 2, I received a text message from friend Brent: "What time do you get home tonight?"

Awwww, I thought to myself, he's going to drop around and apologise personally. I sent a text back "10:30 pm."

A message came back from close-personal-acquaintance Brent: "The door will be open by then."

My heart sank as I stepped onto the train. It would appear that there had been problems and some-bloke-I-met-at-a-party-once Brent had not called. I fretted quietly all the way home. I fed Nat's cat and then went to my own front door. I put the key in the lock and twisted the handle ... nothing. I jiggled the key ... nothing. I looked up and down the street but there was no sign of that-guy-looks-familiar Brent.

I took out my mobile and tried to call him but there was no answer. I sat on my front step in despair. I knew I wasn't going to break a window to get in because, considering just how bad my luck has been lately, the risk was extremely high that a burglar would take all my worldly goods before a glazier could fix it.

My mobile phone rang. It was never-seen-him-before-in-my-life-officer Brent. He was at the office but couldn't find the key register. I described my keys and he appeared at the door a few minutes later. Now, please remember, that I was by no means certain that the key on his keyring would definitely open the door. I thought it likely, because it was the original from which my key was copied, but that wouldn't help much if the lock was jammed ... as it turned out to be.

Now there were two of us standing on the front step, listening to the cats going crazy inside. That-bastard Brent did what all baffled young people do when they're having a crisis in the middle of the night. He rang his father.

"Dad, I need to break into a house."

I don't know what my father would say if I rang him a 11:45 pm and opened with this statement, but I like to think it wouldn't be "Do you have a legal right to enter the building?" I can't be sure, but I hope he would take that as a given. Brent's Dad didn't. Reassured that we had only the best intentions and God on our side, Brent's Dad asked a few questions and concluded that the best means of accessing the house was to remove some tiles from the roof and enter through the manhole in the kitchen ceiling.

Still on the phone Brent started taking off his cuff-links and rolling up the sleeves of his silk shirt. I watched, amused. There was no way that this model for David Jones business attire was going to clamber across roof-tiles. He was loosening his tie before he realised it himself. He paused for a moment. "Dad, how many beers have you had? Can you drive over here?"

We talked about the weather until Brent's Dad arrived at the house with a torch and a can-do attitude. We'd never met before, but he didn't waste any time on niceties. "Hello" he said, and climbed up onto the roof of the carport.

I'd never witnessed this type of housebreaking operation before. If Brent's Dad's performance was anything to judge by, I would not recommend this method for burglars in a hurry, or seeking to be unobtrusive. The racket was deafening. Apart from the singing, the clatter of the tiles being slung around the roof probably woke the entire neighbourhood who, it being after midnight, were decently asleep.

For the first five minutes I cringed at every crash or chorus from the roof, imagining packages of dog poo being inserted into my letterbox every day until I leave the country. However, after about 15 minutes, I started to have other questions. Like where were my neighbours? Someone is beating a hole in my roof in the middle of the night and no-one has come out for a look? In fact, where are the police? Shouldn't I have had to prove my identity and do some explaining to uniformed officers by this stage?

Finally, after almost half an hour of relentless heavy construction noises one of my neighbours came out of his back door. I was invisible, concealed by a blanket on the clothesline. Spotting Brent in the courtyard my neighbour said "Excuse me, mate, could you keep the noise down? You're waking my baby up."

Appalled, I stepped into the light. "Oh" said my neighbour. "I didn't realise you were there."

I was speechless. The reaction of this man to discovering a stranger breaking into my house was to ask him to do it quietly? Deciding that there was no value in expressing my disbelief, I apologised profusely and explained that I was locked out and that we would soon be finished disturbing his child's sleep with our midnight housebreaking. He wandered back inside and Brent and I stared at each other in mute astonishment for the remaining 5 minutes it took for the back door to open.

Brent's Dad, having achieved his mission, vanished as quickly and mysteriously as he had arrived. I drank tea with all-sins-forgiven Brent and discussed this blog update. I know it was a long time coming folks, but I'm sure you'll agree it was worth the wait.

The truly insulting postscript to this story is that the following morning, as I left the house, I tried the key in the lower lock just out of curiosity. It worked perfectly. All the keys worked perfectly. It had just been jammed with disuse. I probably could have spat on the key and it would have worked. Sigh.