The Great Escape

Here is inside the jungle room (enclosed porch area and cat habitat - best room in the house). The doors on the right go into the house and when we leave we come out of the house, lock them, then go out the rejas (on the left not seen here), lock it with a padlock and off we go. The rejas is great because on hot nights we leave the door and the slats (to the left and right of the doors) open and get airflow all the way through and a nice jungle view. The rejas is locked so it is perfectly safe (not that we feel unsafe ever). The slats are mostly closed here, but the top is open about a hand wide for ventilation.


The rejas is locked. I am inside the jungle room looking out.

This is the inside of the double doors. It has a deadbolt that works from the inside, or opens and closes with a key from inside the jungle room.

Thank god I left the slats a little open! I put my hand through, cranked them as open as they would go and could see that the keys were where they should be, hanging on the key rack!

See? Both sets hanging there INSIDE the house while I am locked inside the jungle room with no way out! Yes, I was trying to keep Tuca the kitty inside for the night so I closed and locked the double doors and closed the slats mostly. I went out the kitchen through the metal door that can only be locked from inside. I went around the outside in the nightly search for our fat Washington cat Dakota so I could get him in. I was also trying to keep Chicken the cat inside since he may have gotten bitten in a cat fight yesterday and I want to watch the area to make sure he doesn't get an abcess. I came into the jungle room, locked the padlock, and then realized the double doors were deadbolted!!!! Panic! Shit! It is 9:30 at night. I can see though the slat that the kitchen door is open and the keys are in there. I'll just yell for Amparo the neighbor and she can go inside and get me the keys. After 25 minutes of yelling "ayudar Amparo" "help" etc etc and howling like a caged monkey I realized she probably took drugs and went to sleep. I flicked the lights on and off and on and off since our other neighbor at the bottom uses that as a signal when UPS or something arrives but she was already watching tv and headed for bed. Didn't have a key, didn't have a phone, couldn't yell any more so I figure maybe I could pull the doors open. Nope.

I had a broom in the room so I used it to sweep the other broom from outside over to where I could grab it. I untied one end of the hammock and used the rope to tie the brooms together. The broom head was heavy to I took one of them off. My shoes were in there so I also used a shoe lace to strap them together. They were wobbly without that and if I lost a broom I'd never get out!

Hammock tie up and shoelace gadget.

This is a reenactment now that I am free. When I stuck the two broomsticks through the slat it didn't reach the key rack so I needed something else.

That's when I saw it! The cat toy! A thin lightweight stick with feathers on it, just what I need. I strapped that sucker on the end with a shoelace and the string holding the feathers off it and now had barely enough to reach. The first attempt knocked one set of keys onto the table where I couldn't get them. I decided they could not fall or I'd never get out. I snaked the second set of keys onto the cat toy and slowly pulled the whole contraption in. I got the key and let myself out, took a sleeping pill and tried to forget the whole ordeal - even though it was under an hour. I guess I could have just slept in the jungle room on the cat couch and yelled for Amparo in the daytime - she would have come. I really felt I guess like the cats do when they are closed up - I WANTED OUT! So this morning I was refreshed and about to go search for Dakota the missing cat. Turns out he had an ordeal as well and spent the night locked inside the cement shed with the compressor and scary critters of the night! So all is well in the Kruse household now except for Bepo who is probably dead. I kept that cat in for 2 weeks and cleaned her wounds, gave her love and she slept on the bed and purred and rolled and was becoming a nice cat. I let her out and we haven't see her since. I think she's dead or REALLY pissed off. But now I understand what it is like to be trapped! So where was Jeff? Watching TV in Wisconsin with his family oblivious to the whole shebang.