{The other day I learned that I would never succeed as a burglar. Now I know that I’d be a worse escape artist than Gob Blueth.}
Let me start by telling you that the other day when I wrote about being locked out and having no break-in skills whatsoever, I was not setting out to write a series. But yesterday was a sequel to the previous event.
Derek has been out of town for work stuff. He was out of town when the other incident happened. But I don’t like broadcasting that. He got back late last night, but he was gone yesterday when “Part II” went down.
It’s Sunday morning and everything is going fine. I wake up a classic 20 minutes before I need to leave for church. Absolutely, positively exhausted. {While Derek was away I set myself to refinishing our stairs. A job that was taking many hours. A job that I was tackling mostly between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.} But tired or not I dragged my behind out of bed and get ready. Things were going fine. I walked out the door, keys in hand and headed to the garage.
Walk through the door. Hit the button. Garage door raises. Ummm…garage door raises? Okay, garage door makes a loud metallic sound of clattering breaking mechanism. Garage door track has snapped.
Easy enough solution. I’ll just raise it myself.
So I go over to the door and pull with all my might. But the track has fallen so as the door raises it is obstructed by the track. Simple enough. I grab a step stool and lift the track up a bit….only to discover my hands are now covered with black sticky grease. Whatever, I try the door again. But it’s so heavy I can only lift it a couple inches.
Now, being the inventive girl I am I figure if I can just raise the door enough the door will be able to raise up again. This time I get a little help. I put a jack under the door’s ledge and start cranking. Again, it will only raise a few inches. But I continue trying. Like an idiot, to figure out how to make this silly door lift.
Eventually I found that a bolt had snapped in half. That was the root of the problem. I also found that it was the mechanical track that was preventing me from raising it manually. I had resigned myself that I would not be going to church…the time for being on time had long since come and gone. Again I found myself in a garage full of tools…yet unable to get a door open. So I did what I should have done in the first place: Google.
I googled garage door issues. Growing up I never had a garage. The houses I’ve lived in have had carports for the most part. Once we did have a garage…but it generally got stuck in the up position, not down. It’s safe to say that outside of pushing a button…I have no idea how these things work.
Here’s what I found: Garage doors have these bright red cords hanging down from the track. If you pull it down…you aren’t going to believe this…it triggers a manual override. Meaning that if I pull the red cord, I can lift the door myself.
It was heavy, but the door lifted. I pulled the car out. I made it in time for Sunday school.
Most importantly I learned that I cannot be a burglar. I’m pretty sure a career as an escape artist is also not in the cards. First I was locked out and couldn’t get in. Then I was locked in and couldn’t get out. Luckily when I got to church I took a look in the mirror before leaving the car. I had that black sticky grease smeared on my face. What a week.
Amy
PS…I hope you are ready for an amazing B&A tomorrow. The stairs are done! I can’t even believe that I got them done over the weekend. You are going to flip.
