I got into my car leaving work. It was a Thursday afternoon and I was relieved that the week was just about over. Despite that, Thursdays were my least favorite days because they were my longest days. After six and half hours of work, I went to babysit for three and a half hours.
I pulled out of the parking lot and made my way to my next job. It was a nice day so maybe if I could just get the 13-year-old outside, time would go by a lot quicker.
I groaned upon pulling up to their house. He was sitting outside in the driveway. Usually when he did that that meant the front door of the house was locked.
I parked my car and got out bringing my bag with me. I walked up their steep driveway and Mike was staring at me.
“Guess what?” he grunted sounding annoyed.
“Are we locked out of the house?” I asked.
“Yep!”
“Okay…” I sighed taking out my cell phone. I called his mother and she didn’t know what do about the situation. I called his father and he said that he would come home early.
I looked at the time stamp on my cell phone screen. He would be home in an hour and a half. At least we weren’t going to have to wait for three and a half hours. This was actually kind of a good thing because then I would get to go home early.
Mike banged on the front door.
“Don’t do that,” I shook my head. “It’s nice out. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Walks are lame.” He grunted.
“Then we can just hang out in the backyard. We can go on the swing set, kick around a soccer ball…”
“The backyard is lame.”
I growled under my breath. Mike wasn’t the type of kid to play outside all the time. He enjoyed staying inside the house watching TV and playing his video games. He didn’t really like to get exercise and he didn’t like to stay in the fresh air.
It was nearing the end of May, so the weather was fairly warm. Sure, it was cloudy, but it was still a nice day. There were so many opportunities outside. Mike just didn’t want to have anything to do with them.
First he tried the front door again, then the garage door, and then the back door. Sure enough, all three doors were locked. He found a paperclip in my bag and tried to pick the lock to the back door. When that wouldn’t work, he tried to pop the screen out of the living room window.
He took a small stick and poked larger holes in the screen to unlock it. It didn’t work. He moved onto the bathroom window, but the screen was unlocked already. It easily popped out. Mike cheered.
I had to admit that I was impressed. Maybe he and I were going to get to go inside the house after all. Then again, I was never going to be able to get him to go back outside after that. So it was actually working to my disadvantage.
“No!” Mike shouted.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The window is locked!” Mike banged his head again the window.
Oh. Well, we didn’t think about that one. I looked at the holes he made in the screen on the living room window. That window was probably locked as well so he defaced the screen for no reason.
I sat down on the floor of the deck since his father hadn’t brought out the table and chairs yet for the summer. I sat by my bag sipping on my water as Mike continued to try to pick the lock on the back door.
I looked at the time. I had one more hour to go until his father got home. It was certainly nice that I was going to get to go home two hours early, but… this certainly was not how I imagined my afternoon was going to go.
