B & E

Today I committed a B & E. Yes Breaking and Entering, but don't worry no cops showed up. In fact only one other person knows this act even occurred. Granted, once you read this post you'll know, but it's a funny story so I'm sharing!

Where did I break into? One of my Barns at the Zoo. The Peccary Barn to be exact, though I doubt anyone I work with even knows I have a blog let alone reads it. It is known though that I'm Notorious for leaving my keys places. Usually in doors, but locks just as often as well. That's what happened here. I had my keys in a shift lock and stupidly told my student who was shadowing me for the day to follow me out of the barn and to shut the door behind her. Moments later I realized my keys were not on my belt loop as they should be. Ah Crap! Now I'd have to walk all the way up to the Main office and snag someone else's keys to let myself back in. A walk of shame even if no one ever knew what I was doing, but then I saw an opportunity to salvage the situation.

Not that any of you would know but the Peccary Barn has what I would define as "shanty town" windows. They ain't Pella that's for sure. There isn't any glass just pieces of plexi that I'm sure the Maintenance guys cut. They do have screens so there's at least that. I'm not going to rag on the poor craftsmanship of these windows because that lack of quality construction is what saved me. I always wondered why that one window had a wire running across the back of it and it turns out that wire was what was holding the screen in place on the window. With the wheels turning in my head I scrambled up on top the old salt barrel and removed the wire. Just like that the screen popped out. Ok more like fell out, but out none-the-less. Now I had access to the barn if I could hoist myself up into this window.

From the ground this window is probably 5-6ft up and even on top of the barrel the ledge was at chest height maybe less. Wasn't too focused on how high it was. Oh I should mention that the window itself is about 2' tall x 4' long so it's a good thing I'm little or this might not have worked at all. With a deep breath and hopes for not killing myself on this adventure I hopped up and into the window. Success! I was partly there. Now I just needed some hand grips to help maneuver the rest of me through or I'd end up falling about 4' to the concrete floor of the barn. Not a good idea. With the help of the rafters and a lil wiggling I was soon in the barn and had retrieved my keys, Hurray!

Meanwhile, my student had no clue what had just happened until I told her, though maybe she realized that I was back a whole lot sooner than I said I would be. Whatever. She was too busy saying Hi to the Wallabies in the air lock which was fine. Not sure I could have trusted her to not snap a cell phone pic of me halfway through the window. ;)She did help me put the screen back in the window and I'm sure had a good laugh at the crazy CZ Keeper.

At least now I know that should the need arise I can get into that barn without keys. Not sure what instance that would be but I have other useless knowledge taking up space in my head so why not this too. It was helpful today, so I guess it's not totally useless.