Jailed – Locked in, but Locked Out!

Jailed – Locked in, but Locked Out!

At six o’clock yesterday evening, I decided that I wouldn’t go to the local pub for a drink, as I usually do, but that I would get a few bottles from the off-licence and carry on working, as I have two audiobooks to approve, which is eleven hours’ work. I had no idea that I would soon be jailed up!

So, I put my sandals on and took a bunch of keys off the shelf nearby. They weren’t my normal set, but I assumed that my wife had taken mine and left me hers. I put them in my pocket, closed the door behind me and descended the outside staircase to the street gate below. However, the smaller key would not throw the bar on the grilled gate in the four-metre high street wall.

I went back upstairs for another set of keys, but the larger key would not open the door to our apartment either!

I was trapped on the outside, open staircase, between the street and our apartment. It was the closest to being in gaol that I have ever been. The floor area of the small yard is about two metres by two and from the floor to our door is about two and a half metres.

It would be at least three hours before my wife got home, and it was already getting chilly. I searched my pockets for my own keys, but nothing. So, I contemplated Tweeting a friend to phone my wife, but none of my friends are on Twitter that I know of. I tried Facebook, but it didn’t recognize my password. Then,I tried to install Skype, but Google informed me that none of my registered devices was capable of using it. I don’t know why they thought I was trying to install it on a machine where I wouldn’t work!

I was truly beginning to feel jailed at this point, but I was also feeling rather frustrated.

Jailed Like An animal in a Zoo

I could see people walking past through the gate, but I didn’t know how to ask them to help me. I didn’t even know what they could do!

Anyway, after an hour, the people across the street arrived home, and sat outside their front door, as is their custom. They could see me jailed up, but were too polite to say anything, although I was sure that they were talking about me.

Now, they don’t speak English, and my Spanish is minimal, but after twenty minutes, I tried to explain. The husband took my keys and tried them in the lock.

“They don’t work”, he said handing them back and walking off. I used my tablet to look up the word for ‘landlord’, and pointed at next door, where he lives.

He tried, but Jose was not at home. “Phone your wife”, he suggested helpfully. So, I asked him for his phone, which his wife gave me.

My wife arrived five minutes later and let me out, but when I thrust my hands into my pockets as I walked off, I felt my own keys. They were in one of the hip pockets, which I never use. God knows how they got in there, or why I hadn’t found them earlier. My mother always said that I never looked and I had been jailed – locked in, but locked out for two hours proving her right!

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All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Jailed – Locked in, but Locked Out!