Baby, it's cold outside

We've been having a very unseasonable cold streak of weather lately. NC is not known to be a cold-winter state, but every once in a while, we get really cold weather. For almost a week now, we've had daytime highs in the low 30's, with wind chill down to the teens and twenties. To me...that's cold! And trust me, I found out the hard way just how cold it was last night.


My dog, Tillman, had scratched on the door to our deck to go out. I wanted to make sure he actually did "business", so I went out with him, to shoo him off the deck. It's only a couple of steps down to the grass. I figured we'd be outside a minute or less. When Tillman came back up, I reached for the door....


...and it wouldn't budge! It was locked! By none other than my sweet little Quinn. He somehow managed to flip the deadbolt while I was waiting on the deck...and he could not/would not flip it back. So first, I begin to panic.



I'm outside. It's cold.
I don't have a jacket on. It's cold.
Quinn's stuck inside by himself. It's cold.
How am I going to get back in? It's cold.
I'm outside. It's cold.
And my husband is not home. And it's cold.
And all the other doors are locked. And it's cold.
And it's cold!!!!


Our yard is fenced in and I was afraid I would have to scale the fence to get out of the yard. For some reason, the gate was unlocked (that's a worry for another day, because I don't know why the gate was unlocked). I ran across the street to my neighbor's house and used her phone to call Buddy. (He had left about a half hour before to run a fire call.) Miss Cookie also let me borrow a coat, because I didn't have one on at the time.

Cookie said she would wait for Buddy to call back or get home so I could go back to the backyard and check on Quinn, who at this point, had been "home alone" for about 15 minutes. Much to my surprise, when I looked in the window at him, he was sitting on the couch, calm, content, and watching a cartoon on TV, as if being home alone was no problem. When I knocked on the window at him, he casually looked over his shoulder, threw me the cutest smile ever, waved and said "Hi Mommy", then turned back to the TV.

Gee thanks, son. I'm stuck outside in the cold, you're by yourself, and all I get is a wave and a smile. Since it was obvious Quinn was going to be no help, and I realized I was stuck outside, I picked up my dog, zipped him up in the coat with me, and waited.

Thankfully, our fire station is not far from our house, and Buddy was home in about five minutes to let me and Tillman back inside. But when you are locked out of your house and your toddler is stuck inside, it feels like forever.

So, lesson learned. Always take a coat when you let the dog out, and either hide a key, or give one to your neighbor. You never know when you might need it.

And Quinn...Momma still loves you and this story is funny now. (It wasn't so funny last night!)