No infidelity intended here, but I have to acknowledge how my neighbor, Jeff Estep, has come to my rescue twice. What makes this so unlikely is that Jeff works all over the nation in his job and is home only about a third of the time. Yet God timed things so just when I needed a helping hand, he has been there.
The first was about a year ago. I was out in the yard with Chaise, still a baby-baby, and I stretched the hose over and dropped it in the turtle pond to fill it up because the dogs always like to drink the water from it. I went to the tap and turned it on, with Chaise in my arms, and as I was standing up straight again, I noticed a snake coiled about 6 inches from the tap. It had been within striking distance of me and Chaise!
I let out my characteristic super-sonic “I’ve seen a snake” squeal and reeled backwards. After the initial heeby -geebies wore off, it hit me: the tap is on and that turtle tank will be full to overflowing in about 3 minutes. John was at work and I knew that my neighbors weren’t home because I had seen them drive out earlier. And me? Besides having an infant in arms, I’m terribly afraid of snakes. And even if I weren’t, I couldn’t imagine doing battle with one. I was working this over in my head for about a minute when in the distance I heard a diesel engine. I thought, “If that truck comes past my house, I’ll flag it down – whoever it is.” I watched as the truck came into sight and it was indeed neighbor Jeff. In a skinny minute, he dispatched the snake before the turtle tank overflowed. Neither of us could figure if the snake was a copperhead or a look-alike.
That small miracle would have gone undocumented if not for Jeff’s second rescue yesterday.
I was leaving the house to pick up Gwen from school. My trajectory was to go out the basement door, get in the car, drive it around to the front door, pick up sleeping Chaise from my bedroom and whisk him into the car seat without waking him so he could sleep a little longer and I could have a peaceful ½ hour ride to pick up Gwen.
I walked out the basement door, locking it behind me. Immediately, as if I already knew what was coming, I reached into my purse and discovered to my horror that my house keys were not in my purse. In a second I recalled that Gwen had used them to unlock the door last night and I knew she must not have returned them to their usual and customary home, the place I count on them being! Problem: My house is locked up as “tight as Fort Knox,” as Jeff said later, and my baby is sleeping inside. Did I mention that my husband was out of town?
Not a problem: The other spare key resides at our neighbor’s house so the kids can feed our animals during our frequent excursions. So I zoomed down to their house and found Jeff at home alone. He sprang into a frantic search for the key, but couldn’t find it. And his wife wasn’t answering her cell and the kids weren’t either (probably because they aren’t supposed to have cell phones in school). About five minutes had gone by since I left the house and I was started to imagine Chaise awake and screaming for me, so I told Jeff I was going on up and asked that if he couldn’t find the key, that he come up and help me break into my house.
When I arrived, of course, our yappy dog Mindy whose job it is to alert the entire household of all comings and goings, even involving members of the family, started in. I went to the bedroom window and peeked in and couldn’t see Chaise, which meant he was probably still asleep on the bed. Jeff came up about a minute behind me, and again, Mindy the guard dog sounded her alarm. As we tried the front door with a credit card, Mindy barked on. She was a very lucky dog to be separated from me by a locked door at that moment!
Jeff went around the house trying windows – I knew nothing would be open – he jumped up on our back deck to try that door. “Locked up tight as Fort Knox,” he said. I went to the basement and tried the door again, I’m not sure why, since that’s the door I had locked to set this whole catastrophe in motion. It was locked. Further defying explanation, Jeff came behind me and tried the basement door too. Locked. But then he shoved it and it opened!
“Thank God and thank you!” I blurted as I ran up into the house to find Chaise soundly sleeping. I resisted the urge to kick the dog!
Jeff went on his way without fanfare, having saved the day and saved one of my windows from a very ugly fate. And he uncovered a breach in our Fort Knox-like security! From now on, I will deadbolt the basement door – and have my house keys in hand before I close the door behind me!
i believe in miracles
