Time in Lock Up

I just spent the last 40 minutes in lock up, the slammer, the clink, prison, well actually it was just the boys bedroom. You see, sometimes the best laid plans can um, backfire on you. Since we were are still having problems with the boys getting out of their bed and coming to ours in the middle of the night, we decided to switch their door lock around - so it would lock from the outside. Mind you we have never locked the door from the outside. We just haven't been able to do it yet. Call it paranoia, the thought that something may happen in the middle of the night; a fire, a burglar, a monster, a tornado, an earthquake, I dunno, any number of things could happen. Right?

As I said, we have not used the lock. The boys use it all the time. It's so cute how they think they are locking me out of the room so they can secretly jump on their beds. Or how Big Sticky will "lock" Little Sticky out so he can play with the trains all by himself. Tonight, Little Sticky used it on me. I was reading Big Sticky a story before bedtime. Little (who took a late afternoon nap and was not interested in going to sleep) came in, interrupted the story only to announce that he was "going down-tairs to be wif da-ye." On the way out, he locked the door, and then slammed it shut. Just like in prison.

I kept my cool and finished reading to Big Sticky. Once he fell fast asleep I started thinking how I was going to get out. I didn't want to bang on the door or scream call out to my husband only to wake Big Sticky (and most likely Princess). I recalled predicting this scenario to my next door neighbor. I warned her that if she ever heard me yelling or saw me hanging out from the second floor window that I probably needed assistance in getting loose. But it was dark out. What were the chances that she would actually be out working in her yard? Although she does live so close that I could probably throw a HotWheel (or two) at her windows. I then remembered that I had "hidden" a wire hanger behind one the boy's headboards. Ah Ha! It was still there. I poked and poked, and poked and poked, (and cursed) and poked, and turned the hanger around six different times, and poked (and cursed) and poked a few more times before it finally popped. Whew! That was a close one. I felt a little like Andy Dufrene from Shawshank - minus the digging thru miles of stone walls, and swimming thru sewage, and the weeks in solitary confinement, the clever framing of Warden Norton, and of course the escape to a peaceful, white sand beach somewhere in Mexico.