Kicking it old school...

My garage door opener broke. Because of course things break in this house. All the things. All the time. Break, break, breakity, break. I had just pulled in from the ASU football game Thursday night and pushed the button in my car to close it. I was getting out as it closed.

And just like that, I thought I was about to die.

I heard a loud snap. I ducked, y'all. Because something gadgety was trying to kill me.

When I realized what it was, I was thankful that wire didn't pop me in the head. That would have hurt.

So I went inside to spread the good news to Mr. B.

He was super thrilled that something else had gone wrong with The Money Pit. (That's what we call our house now. For future reference, TMP.)

For the first day, the mister braced it open so I could get out. I ran errands and stuff. Then I would have the kids get out of the van, go punch in the code, and open Mr. B's side of the garage so we could get in. You would have thought I asked them to solve world peace or something. The exhaustive sighs that came from them.

Bless their hearts.

That was my one of my jobs growing up. We didn't have fancy garage door openers. Shoot, we didn't always have a garage. It didn't matter though. Rain, sleet, snow, gale force winds, millions of degrees outside, my brother or I got out and opened the door. And we stood there and waited for the family truckster to be tucked safely away and we'd roll the door back down behind us.

Other jobs we had that involved "manual labor" were changing the TV channel and adjusting the volume. We were the remote control to all twelve of our channels.

And let me tell you, lawn mowers haven't always pulled themselves for you and you just basically guided them effortlessly through the thick grass. We pushed those beasts with all our might. And my dad was a stickler for bagging the grass. Only he would have us dump the cut grass in the bed of his truck. Then, because we smelled and there wasn't room for all of us in the cab, we'd ride in the back (with the loose grass) to some mystery destination where we'd sweep the truck bed out.

Only we usually didn't get all of it. And then our family would feel the need to go on a road trip to see the grandparents. In the truck. And guess who got to ride in the bed of the truck. That's right, load up, kids. A few hours in that hot truck with grass in our eyes. And no benadryl. We couldn't afford luxuries. And in case you've ever looked, there are no seat belts back there. I can't believe we did that.

It was a rough life. We're lucky we survived.

So count your blessings, boys. You hopped out and entered a four digit code. Oh the humanity...

After being trapped in our home for a few days (which wasn't the worst thing ever) the garage door people were able to come and fix it. I am free to lurk about town again.

And the kids are able to rest their index finger. Because it was hard to get out and enter that code.