Confession: I have never once unlocked a door to our house with a key, and entered that way.
Every single time I've come home, I've entered through the garage. My car has a built in button to open the door from inside the car. And if that were ever to fail, I have the actual garage door opener in my glove box. This week my car happens to be getting some minor work done, so I've been driving a rental, and using that spare garage door opener. Tom does the same thing.
Sometimes Tom's home already when I get home, most of the time he's not, although he usually gets home within 20 minutes of when I do. This particular day, however, he was on a business trip and wouldn't be returning until after I was asleep. I was looking forward to a nice quiet night on the couch, in my new PJs, and a bowl of grapes to enjoy. It doesn't take much to make me happy.
As I was driving up the road towards the house, I hit the garage open button. When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed the door was still down. I must have pressed the button too soon, I thought. I pressed it again. Nothing. I pressed the button for Tom's door. Nothing. Odd. Maybe the batteries on my door opener are dead? We inherited the openers from the people we bought the house from, they're probably a few years old, so it's plausible. I tried the buttons a few more times, but they did nothing.
Not to worry, our garage has a key pad on the outside that allows us to open the door from there. I've also never used this keypad, but I know others have, and it can't be that complicated. The only thing is, Tom changed the code recently to let in the basement workers. I'm pretty sure I remember it though. I type it in and hit enter. The lights flash and nothing happens. Code then # then enter? Enter then #? Try a different code? Nothing is happening.
Is our garage broken? That's odd. Well I guess I'll park in the driveway overnight, and just go in through the front door. Although I have never used it, I do actually have a key to the house. I go back to the car, grab my purse and search for the key. I find the key ring it originally came on, but no key. I remember I removed it to put it on my keychain, which is usually in my wristlet. I open my wristlet and find... the keys to Nicole's house. That's right, I remember... my keychain has my car keys on it too... which are with my car... which is not currently with me. And when I handed over my car and keys, I didn't think to take the house key off because I've never used it. I only took the garage opener.
Huh.
So the garage door opener isn't working. Neither is the key pad. And it appears I don't have keys to get in the house. And Tom isn't even in the same state as me. Actually, at this exact moment he was on an airplane, with his phone turned off. I can't even call him to confirm the garage code. I send him all caps messages anyway.
As I'm sitting there debating what to do, I remember something else odd. Usually when I get off the T, I open up the Nest app and turn the heat on so by the time I get home the house is nice and warm. Today when I tried to do that, it said the house was offline. It seemed odd to me, but I was in the middle of a conversation with my boss, who often commutes with me, so I ignored it at the time. Now, though, I'm wondering if we maybe lost power? I peek through our windows and notice the light over the kitchen sink that I left on is still on. Odd.
At this point I'm completely out of ideas, and starting to feel a bit weird that the neighbors might notice an unfamiliar car in our driveway with me creeping around outside. I decide nothing is going to happen until Tom gets home anyway, so I might as well find a fun place to wait out the evening. I decide to head to a friend's house, which also happens to be home to my favorite munchkin, so that cheers me up a bit.
Later I talk to Tom when he lands, confirm he does have a key with him, and make plans to meet back at the house around when he thinks he'll be home. His garage door opener doesn't work either, and once inside, he finds that our basement breaker has gone kaput, which explains both the garage doors, and the Wi-Fi being out. Easy enough to buy another one and replace it, but more important is trying to figure out why it happened. With all the recent work to our basement (although nothing has happened there in the past week), it leaves us a bit concerned.
The mystery continues...