Adventures in Dog-Sitting

I've been hanging out in the Fort with Dakota for a week now, and we've had some pretty interesting times.  Last Monday, my first day here, I picked up Dakota at the vet where she had been boarding for a couple of nights because I was out of town when her people (a couple of my professors from law school) left for Europe.  I brought her to the house, unlocked the door, put Dakota and an armload of my stuff (clothes, etc., for the next couple of weeks) inside, and went back out to grab another armload.  When I came back with the next armload, the door was locked.  And the keys were inside on the counter.  Apparently there is some setting on the doorknob lock that allows you to unlock the door to get inside, but the lock continues to function without you having to re-set it once you close the door again.  That's pretty high-tech for my non-tech brain, so I had no idea.  There I sat, outside, in a suit (minus the jacket - I had left it inside) and uncomfortable shoes, while Dakota looked at me through the door wondering why she was stuck inside.

I called Ben and he came over to help me get in the house.  We searched and searched for a hidden key and finally found a hide-a-key box, but we didn't know the code to it.  I called everyone I could think of who might know the code, to no avail.  I also tried sending a message to Dakota's people in Europe to get the code, but it was the middle of the night there, so there was no immediate response.  To make a long story short, we ended up breaking in through some patio doors that weren't fully secured (they are now).  If you had told me 8 years ago that I would eventually break into my law professors' house, I would've had you committed.  Luckily, though, we didn't even break anything.  I was thinking the whole time that I was going to just have to break something and have it fixed, but that was not the case.  Anyway, there was an extra set of keys in the house, and I gave them to Ben "just in case."

Later that night, after dinner, I took Dakota out in the yard to play with a toy.  When we got up to go back in the house, the door was locked.  AGAIN.  I just could not get it through my head that the damn door stayed locked even after I had opened it with the key!!  Okay, I thought, Ben has an extra key, so I'll just call him.  It's like 9:00 at night and he'll probably be annoyed, but at least I don't have to try to break in again (especially since I had secured the patio doors already).  Yep, that would've been a great plan, but unfortunately my cell phone was locked inside the house.  A lesser woman would've given up and cried at that point, but I'm resourceful so I ventured out on the sidewalk and waited on someone to walk by (it's the Fort - people are always walking somewhere).  The first person to pass was a homeless lady - doubtful she'd have a cell phone, so I didn't ask.  I waited about 10 more minutes before I saw another person, who appeared to be a college student (all of them have phones, right?) and he was about half a block away.  Again, others might have given up, but I chased him down and asked to borrow his phone.   I'm pretty sure he only let me because he thought I might bust a cap in his ass if he didn't (I mean, I would've freaked out if someone chased me down like that after dark in the Fort - it's a wonder he didn't throw me his wallet, too).  But hey, whatever you've got to do, right?   So I called Ben, and he let me back in the house.

Just when I thought my dog-sitting stint couldn't get more adventurous, when Dakota and I came back from our evening walk on Wednesday (around 7:45, I think), I heard glass breaking from the front of the house when I opened the back door.  My firearm was upstairs by the bed, as I don't generally carry it around during the daytime due to its bulky "freak out the neighbors" factor, so my only option was to retreat to the sidewalk and call 911.  I must say I was very impressed with the emergency response time in the Fort, as the first KPD officer arrived within a minute of my call.  Within a minute after that, I had 2 more KPD uniformed officers, one plain-clothes officer, and 3 UTPD officers milling around (it's summer - the UTPD guys are bored).  I, of course, informed the first guy that I had a firearm in the house, so whoever was in the house may be armed.  The officers then began circling the house in tactical mode, guns drawn, etc.  So much for not wanting to freak out the neighbors. 

After circling the outside of the house, one officer came to me and said, "Ma'am, I need to get in the house to check it, but the door is locked (I'd told him I opened the back door when I heard the glass breaking).  Of COURSE the door is locked.  That's what it does.  But luckily I had the keys, so they were able to get in.  It turned out that the glass breaking was actually a light bulb from a can light over the front door.  I think the bulb was on a timer, and it must've just come on when I came in the back door.  When it came on, the bulb burst and fell onto the tile floor below.  But hey, at least I wasn't hearing things...

Anyway, the officers were all very nice, even though the first one to arrive was a Bama fan and I was wearing Auburn shorts (he didn't tell me this until we had all "stood down").  They were also very knowledgeable about their "beat" (I'm loving the cop lingo) because they asked me how long I've lived here and told me the house "used to belong to a UT law professor."  Good guys - and they certainly helped me sleep easier Wednesday night.

So far that has been the extent of our adventures, other than regular walks around the Fort, the World's Fair Park, and the campus area.  I'm hoping this week will be relatively uneventful - Dakota is tired of all the commotion.