Burglary (oh maybe not)

Well today is Fun for Friday over at Get It Scrapped and our assignment is to retell a story from childhood or share a memory that will make us, and others smile. So here is mine! (Family members will all remember this well)

I was in about fourth or fifth grade, living in Flagstaff, Arizona. When weather was permitting I rode my bike to school on my own and sometimes picked up a friend on the way. My friend Shannon Madden was the pick up for the day so off I went to gather her up and head to school. I made it to her home in plenty of time and vaguely remember her not being quite ready so I went inside to wait. Shannon is a dear childhood friend and still is a friend today, we lovingly call her Bug. So I sat waiting for Bug, the rest of the family is already gone so the two of us are on our own to get to school. When she was just about ready to go she headed to the garage to get her bike, and here my memory gets a little fuzzy. I follow her out the laundry door into the garage and as she is trying to open the garage door she turns back and yells “Don’t let that door close!” OOPS! Too late, the deed is done. The door has locked behind me, and for some unknown reason the garage door is locked in front of us so we are stuck!
Yep, two young girls around 11ish stuck in a garage trying to make it to school on time. My seance of responsibility kicks in and I am freaking out about not getting to school on time. Bug on the other hand is worried about food and water for the long day ahead. needless to say neither of us are thinking clearly. We try the laundry door. We bang, we shove we even try to pick the lock as I recall. Then we attack the garage door, we pulled up as hard as we could, we kicked and banged some more. Then we both climbed up on the work bench and started yelling with all our might for Bug’s neighbor. All of these efforts were futile, nothing worked, we were stuck! Well almost.
We decided we were getting out no matter what. I am not sure who’s brilliant idea it was but we decided to go out the window. The only thing stopping us was a screen. We could not figure out how to get it off so we literally shoved on one corner until it started bending. Bug and I made the whole big enough for us to crawl through and we escaped and were on our merry way!
We made it to school and as I recall not even very late. (It had seemed like hours in the garage.) And we went on with our day. I am sure we told the story to our friends and laughed over our adventure even then.
So fast forward to about 7pm that evening and my Mom gets a phone call, I remember hearing the one sided part of the conversation “Oh my” “I can’t believe it” “Is everything OK?” you know the kind of call. When she got off I asked what happened and to who? “The Madden’s had a burglary” was the response. GULP!
Pat Madden is the chief of police and nothing gets by this guy! He immediately notices the bent screen and calls in the troops. They were currently fingerprinting and looking for missing valuables. What they can not figure out is why the screen is bent outward, like someone escaping and why all the doors on the house were still locked tight. Hmmm… I think I have the answer!
I fess up right away and tell Mom the whole story. She hurridly calls the Maddens back to set the record straight and call off the chase. No one was angry, no harm, no foul. I can not remember where Bug was during all of this and why she was not the one to tell the tail but boy was it a doosy.
We have all laughed more then once over this tale and even when it happened there was much chucling.

Hope this added a smile to our Friday!