locked out

I did something stupid yesterday. Let me start with a background on my day. I woke up, felt a little better than the day before, got dressed and went to work. I worked a solid 9.25 hour day, ate dinner at work, and stopped at the mall on my way home. I went night shooting the night before and immediately realized that I need a tripod. I found a tripod at the camera shop for $20 (probably not the best, but when I get a real tripod sometime down the line, it will make me appreciate it a lot more). I went home, had a bowl of ice cream, and sat down to relax for a few minutes. I dozed off. I woke up at 9pm.

I had to drop a check off at a local merchant, so I grabbed it, my wallet, and my cell phone. It felt like my keys were already in my pocket so out the door I went. I locked the door from inside so when I closed the door it was locked…I reached into my pocket for my keys to be able to lock the deadbolt on the door, but they weren’t there. Instead, I found my work ID and all the junk I haul around with it. My keys were inside the house. I knew right where they were at. I was locked out.

To make it even better, our landlord does not have a key to our apartment. He likes it better if the tenants are the only ones that have a copy. And then to top it off, Laura was in Apple Valley taking care of some wedding details.

I started walking. I had to drop this check off and being locked out wasn’t going to change that. I tried calling Laura on my way there but she wasn’t answering her phone. I dropped the check off around 9:30pm. I remembered that I have her parents’ number in my phone, so I called it and got a hold of her. I explained the situation and how dumb I felt. She hopped in her car and started on her way back. That meant I now had an hour and a half to kill.

I went to In-N-Out and got a soda and some fries. I walked over to Borders and found a couple periodicals to browse through. After a lengthly stay there, I began walking back home. Shortly after I got there, Laura showed up and let me in. My keys were right where I had left them, staring me in the face.

I felt so dumb, so ashamed, that I went upstairs. We were having a 400+ player test of our game tonight, so I went to monitor it. I also checked on the status of my latest publish at work (still in progress). I then set up the new tripod, turned off the lights and my monitor, and snapped a couple of shots out the window. The tripod definitely helps the quality of the shots. Now I need to learn how to manually adjust the ISO setting on my camera to shoot at higher ISO so this becomes less of a problem.

And the best part: I still feel dumb.