The Door

I remember the day as if it were this morning.

It was a cold and cloudy November day. My wife had gone to a wedding at a local church. I stayed home with our, at the time, two-year-old.

I had been putting the outside Christmas lights up slowly but surely.

This day all I wanted to do was step outside the front door and hang the lighted garland around it. The hooks were already in place. I opened the door and stepped outside.

And the door slammed shut behind me. I heard the unmistakable sound of the deadbolt turning.

I grabbed the door handle and turned it before he could lock it too. I screamed for him to unlock the door. He was starting to talk in complete sentences, but I could not get the message across to him that he needed to unlock the door.

I didn’t have the keys in my pocket. There was a garage door opener — in a locked car in my driveway. I couldn’t call anyone. I didn’t have my phone.

I dropped the garland. “Son #1, let me in. Now!”

“Dada, (insert jumbled up jargon here.)”

We would let him close the door and lock it whenever guests left. I’m assuming that he thought since I walked out the front door (I use the side door mostly), he should shut and lock it, which I would highly encourage, normally.

I yelled through the door and told him to get away from the door.

And I kicked the door in.

The door flew open, and wood splinters sailed across the living room.

The outer layer on the sheetrock had torn away from the wall, and you could see daylight between the door and frame.

I made sure Son #1 was alright, picked up the door trim from the floor, then stepped back outside the door to hang the garland.

Then my wife came home.

And that’s all I have to say about that day.

to the SWAT teams,
– Caleb