Open Doors and a Winter Skeleton-Key Rescue

We never locked our doors in the early years. The front door was often left open in the summer in hopes of catching a strong breeze. This, of course, let every fly in town into the house. We hung flypaper (long, thin strips of sticky amber paper) from the ceiling and the flies would land on it, stick, and eventually die. There was never a threat that someone would rob or harm us, but we did have a few window peepers. Later on, we used a “skeleton key” to lock the doors. I remember an incident with our skeleton key that probably could be classified as “my most embarrassing moment.” This incident happened while Chris and I were living with Mom, so Chris must have been about five years old. Mom was away, visiting Diana in Florida. It was winter, very cold and it had been snowing. I woke up this particular morning, had a sudden burst of energy and decided to clean the house. I didn’t even bother to get dressed before I started. I had on a sheer batiste short housecoat with only panties on underneath and I was barefoot. I dashed out the back porch door to shake a small rug. I was hurrying because it was cold and I was barefoot. But, I wasn’t quick enough. The moment I stepped outside Chris was right behind me and slammed the door shut, somehow locking it at the same time. I tried to tell Chris how to open the door to no avail, ran around to the front door, but it was also locked. There I was, left outside in the cold, only a thin housecoat on and barefoot. I knew I had to get help from someone. So I walked very quickly over to the Sajbens. I knocked on the door and Mr. Sajben came to answer it. I was so embarrassed! I tried to wrap my arms around myself to cover up whatever I could. He didn’t say a word about how I was dressed but he did seem to have a little smirk on his face as he walked me back to the house. He easily opened the door using the skeleton key to his house. As he opened it he laughed and said, “This skeleton key will probably open every door on this street.”