Truly, one doesn't want to return from Minnesota (or for that matter, from Rite Aid in Highland Park, say - but Minnesota makes it worse) to find that one's locked out. More precisely - I arrived (from speaking at UM-Morris) on a flight that preceded Alice's (speaking at St Olaf's), and had enough time to do some admin and put some vegetables to roast in the oven before heading off to meet her train from EWR. And then. The cylinder spun. We were stuck. We couldn't get in again. The smell of roasted vegetables was becoming increasingly carbonized. I don't know what we'd do without our friend and contractor Pat (that is, I guess that I do know, and it would involve Highland Park police, and be neither pretty nor cheap), who wonderfully came round with a very large wrench, and saved the day.
Yes, that solid chunky thing on the door is a lock box. No, the house hasn't yet sold. Yes, the porch floor has been re-done. But the overall effect, in the dark, is rather like the suburban house in Richard Marsh's totally creepy 1897 novel The Beetle. There might be anything sliding around in the gloom.
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