So that’s what I tried to do.
I was on the second story of a duplex, but you could kind of get to the patio from the front stairs; so I walked up the stairs, climbed onto the railing, and tried to grab on to the rail of my patio. If I could get my hand on it and swing a leg around, I was pretty confident I could get onto the patio without much chance of falling to my death. From there, it was just a matter of crawling through the little doggie door in the screen that had been put there by the tenants before me. I had hated that damn doggie door until that very moment, when I was convinced it was my salvation.
As I continued my attempts to grab on to the patio rail, I realized that this might actually be an incredibly stupid plan, in which I was sure to be injured. If it was taking me this long to grab the rail in the first place, why on earth did I think I could easily swing my leg onto it once I reached it?
I made one final and valiant attempt to grab on before I got the cockamamie idea that it was best to go leg first. I was leg first when Ben found me.
“Elsie?”
“Ah!” I almost lost my footing, but I managed to get my leg back onto the steps, only slightly falling over in the process. I caught myself. “Hi, Ben!” I ran down the steps and hugged him. He was laughing.
“Whatcha doin’ there?”
I was embarrassed, but somehow not in any threatening way.
“I was trying to break into my own apartment. I locked myself out without a phone or a wallet or anything.”
“You don’t have a spare key?”
I shook my head. “No. I did, at one point, but then it seemed smarter somehow for me to give it to my friend Ana, so she had it in case of emergency.”
He laughed again. It didn’t feel like he was laughing at me. Although, I think technically he was.
“Got it. Well, what do you want to do? You can call Ana from my phone now if you want. Or we can go get lunch and then you can call her when we get back?”
I started to answer, but he cut me off.
“Or, I’m also happy to break into your house for you. If you haven’t given up on that idea yet.”
“Do you think you can swing your leg over this rail onto that one?” I said. I was joking, but he wasn’t.
“Absolutely, I can.”
“No, stop. I was kidding. We should go get lunch.”
Ben started taking off his jacket. “No, I insist you let me do this. It will look brave of me. I’ll be considered a hero.”
He walked closer to the rail and judged the distance. “That’s actually quite far. You were going to try to do that?”
I nodded. “But I have little regard for my own safety,” I said. “And a very bad sense of distance.”
Ben nodded. “Okay. I’m going to jump this thing, but you have to make me a promise.”
“Okay. You got it.”
“If I fall and hurt myself, you won’t let them call my emergency contact.”
I laughed. “Why is that?”
“Because that’s my mother and I blew her off for lunch today so I could see you.”
“You blew off your mom for me?”
“See? It doesn’t make you look very good either, letting me do it. So do we have an agreement?”
I nodded firmly. “You got it.” I put out my hand to shake. He looked me in the eye and dramatically shook it, as a smile crept back onto his face.
“Here we go!” he said, and he just jumped it, like it was nothing, pulled his legs up and out, grabbed on to the patio rail, and swung his leg over.
“Okay! Now what?” he asked.
I was mortified to admit the next part of my plan. I hadn’t considered how he would fare against the doggie door.
“Oh. Well. Hmm. I was just gonna . . . I was going to crawl in through the doggie door there,” I said.
He looked behind him and down. Seeing it through his eyes, I realized it was even smaller than I’d thought.
“This doggie door?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry! I should have mentioned that part first maybe.”
“I cannot fit through that door, I don’t think.”