A bad start

The other day, with an extra hour to spare, I decided to take a shower when woosh, a gust of wind closed the back door behind me and I was left locked out of my house.  You see, taking a shower in Mexico requires first turning on the water heater.  Wait ten minutes, and voila, a warm shower.  Simple enough until circumstances go awry and there you are stranded on your back porch clad only in a towel staring at your locked door.  Add to the scenario that it is raining and I was surrounded by 10-foot high stone walls and Anders was not expected home for hours and the problem just gets better.

What to do:

1. Break the window of the door.  Probably the most logical, but also the most costly.  Return to this solution only if all others fail.
2. Succumb to the feeling of being all alone and stranded and cry until falling asleep or being rescued.
3. Encourage Bird to jump up on the door until she hits the handle and welcomes me back inside.  Good in theory, but bad in practice.  When attempted, Bird merely looks up at me confused and then goes to lie on the couch.
4. Stack four spare tires rims and climb them like a ladder to see if upstairs windows are unlocked: not tall enough. 
5. Stack four tire rims onto a chair and try again: still not tall enough to reach the windows, but it is now possible to see over the wall into the neighbor’s backyard.  Good news, their window was open.  Bad news, a giant moan from inside reminds me that my neighbors are in fact mentally handicapped and likely unable to offer their assistance.  Try this option before breaking the window.
6. Climb the tree: sadly, not physically or emotionally equipped for such feats.  Feet hurt from the bark rubbing against them and terribly afraid of heights.
7. Scream for help: no luck, so I take this as a sign to let out a great shout of profanity, something about this bleepity bleep country.  A very ladylike shout of course.
8. Hoist myself to the top of the wall in the hopes that some sort of balancing act will produce results, but the combination of a shaky make-shift ladder and my lack of balance make this seem like a bad idea.
9. Clamber up the gas tanks to see if they are tall enough for me to reach the roof.  Nope.
10. Remember there is a ladder leaning against the back wall and prop it up against the roof.  Push away fears of the slick and slanted corrugated metal roof and me passed out in a puddle on the ground and start to climb.  Get to the top only to discover that the window is locked.

So there I was, all options exhausted, trying to figure out the best way to get down from the roof when out of the corner of my eye I spied an elderly gentleman a few blocks away.  Left with the choice of him or my mentally handicapped neighbors, I let out a crackled “Perdón.”  Nothing. This man wasn't going to make things easy.  I paused to consider other options and realizing I had none blurted out a giant “Perdón,” thus getting his attention.  Now I was faced with the new obstacle of explaining in Spanish why I was standing on my roof, in my towel, in the rain. “Senor, mis llaves son cerrado en mi casa.  Puedues ayudar?  Mi casa es en Los Arcos.  Mi puerta enfrente de es abierto.”* Very broken and very wrong, and yet somehow, I convinced the man to come to my rescue and gave him the necessary directions to do so (thank goodness I listened to Anders give the pizza man directions or I may have stayed on that roof all day).

* Translato-bot here.  Roughly translated, I think you could say that says “Mister, my keys are close in my house.  Can you help?  My house is in the arches.  My door in front of is open.”  Not bad for a desperate language-learning near-nudist standing on her roof at midday.

With this good news at hand, I realized a new predicament: Bernadette is going to bark at this man when he tries to walk through the front door.  The kindly gentleman had a decent walk to make because we live on a closed road giving me at least five minutes to devise a solution encouraging Bernadette to not bark at him, but by the time he showed up I had come up with nothing and he stood at the front door paralyzed  “No muerda.  Ella es muy simpatico.”*  To have made it this far, to see hope in the form of a frail, old man standing in my doorway, and then to have him to afraid to walk in the front door because of a dog with a fierce bark who is so terrified of men that if he just came inside she would run away was too much.  I just kept screaming through my locked back door,  “She is nice, she won’t bite,” and next thing I know, he is at my back door rescuing me from my misery.  I had used up all the Spanish I had at this point to properly thank the man for walking in the rain to help my stranded self and just kept repeating “muchas gracias”** over and over hoping that somehow this would convey my sincere gratitude for his kindness.

* Hola.  This is quite good, saying “She doesn’t bite.  She is very nice (for a man).”

** C’mon now, you know that one, gringo.

A few days later, I made a batch of dulce de leche brownies to thank the kind man, but when Anders and I went to his house to deliver them, he couldn’t even make it to the door to receive his gift because he had a “delicate sickness.”  I just hope that wasn’t my fault.