Breaking and Entering

I learnt last night that I am definitely not fit enough to be a successful burglar. After being unable to find my coin purse in the house, I went outside to see if I’d dropped it on the front walk whilst fumbling with the change for my bus fare that morning. I opened the front door as wide as I could and carefully picked my way down our treacherously sloped sidewalk. Halfway down I heard a sickening click. Oh no, I thought, and turned to look at the door. Sure enough, it had blown shut. Of course it locks automatically. Of course I hadn’t brought a key outside with me. Of course my flatmate wasn’t home.

It was such an obvious and easily prevented situation. It was like a scene in a film where everyone sees what’s coming several minutes before the unfortunate character on the screen. And the way I fixed the situation was also fit for a bad comedy movie. I walked around the back of the house to the fence that encloses our backyard. I reached above my head, grabbed the edge of it and tried to scrabble up and over it. But my disgusting lack of upper body strength made this approach impossible. I needed a boost.

I walked back to the front of the house and looked for the big, black plastic container that I knew was around somewhere. I hauled a heavy and stinky sack of fertilizer out of it and carried the bucket around to the back alley. I turned it upside down and climbed up, trying not to crush it or upend it in the process. I made a few furtive attempts to swing my leg up and over the top of the gate. Still not enough height. I left the bucket in place and went in search of some additional assistance.

Luckily someone had left a sturdy-looking empty recycling bin lying on the sidewalk nearby. I brought this back to the gate and tried to balance the black bucket on top of it. This was too precarious to stand on even in my desperate situation. But another look at the recycling bin gave me another idea. If I turned it on its end, it was taller than the black bucket. I set it down this way and carefully climbed up. It gave me just enough of a height difference.

I clung to a corner post with both hands whilst clumsily managing to catch hold of the top of the gate with my heel. I used my much stronger legs to pull the rest of my body to the top of the gate. Then it was just a matter of getting down. I slowly lowered myself a little ways and used the lock on the inside of the door as a foothold. I jumped the rest of the way to the ground without serious injury. Luckily I’d left the back door of the house itself unlocked and was able to gain access very easily.

For the rest of the night I expected to hear sirens approaching as the police responded to reports of breaking-and-entering. My forced entry had been far less than stealthy. Robbery is definitely something I cannot take up as a profession, no matter how bleak the job search becomes. I have massive bruises on my legs, scrapes on my legs and wrists and tremendously sore muscles. But I didn’t have to sit outside for the three hours that passed before my roommate returned in the downpour that started shortly after I made it back into the house. And I found my coin purse, too.