Breaking and entering for fun and adventure
One minute I was just another happy camper, and the next I was cast as the sole person responsible for saving a family’s vacation, and here’s the strangest part. It wasn’t even my own family!
Kristin and I, along with a passel of old friends, were tented up in a state park along the shore of Lake Erie when a desperate granny came calling. Her whole extended brood was locked out of their camper! And while Grandpa was a champ with many things, breaking and entering wasn’t in his skill set. (How Granny had presumed it was among my talents remains a mystery.)
Nevertheless, minutes later I was on the job with a pancake spatula in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, trying to push back the latch on a 1980s Coachman. Things were not going well.
I never asked the circumstances under which both the primary key and spare key were locked inside the unit, and frankly, I’m not so sure it mattered. The desperation on Grandpa’s brow amplified by a waterfall of sweat across his forehead on this 90 F day firmly convinced me that if he made it through this predicament, it would never happen again.
Grandpa and I greeted each other with nothing more than knowing nods when I’d first walked up. Introductions weren’t necessary, as any man in desperate need of a quick hand is going to take it and exchange niceties on the other side of the crisis.
I set to work but gave up fairly quickly on the latch as, no matter how nimble I may be at flipping flapjacks, prying back a deadbolt with a flat, flimsy piece of kitchenware is a talent that escapes me.
We turned next to a window that seemed to be held in place only by the 40-year-old weather seal around its edge. Here I drew a screwdriver as my tool of choice, and while balanced on a 5-gallon bucket, I toiled to remove 5 feet of oxidized plastic a few inches at a pop.
It was during this operation I discovered Grandpa’s fixation on a particular product as the panacea for all pickles — WD40. While pitched as an all-purpose lubricant and employed in a million different applications as such, there are many who believe the substance is capable of canonized miracles. Grandpa was one of the believers.
He stood behind me, squirting desperate and heavy streams of the slick elixir at everything in the vicinity, so much so the oil was dripping off my elbows and onto the tops of my flip-flops, making my bucket-top perch even more dubious.
The window trick didn’t work. The glass had been epoxied in place. We moved next to an access door, which offered a clear view inside the trailer at floor level, yet despite my struggling attempts, it would offer no passage for even the smallest human being among us (me).
Finally, Grandpa noticed a swing-out window with one of the two latches inadvertently left open. With half the job done, we set about prying the frame just enough to allow the entry of a nearby hot dog-roasting rod and flipped the switch. An open window!
Now I could complete my mission to bring happiness to both my new camp neighbors and my now “hangry” friends who had put off dinner for an hour while I played burglar. I squeezed through the narrow hole onto the lower level of a bunkbed and, finally, stepping into the history of two families as a guy who would stop at nothing for a great adventure to write about.
Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.