It occurred to me when we had a power outage the other day that I have a set of keys along with an orange whistle for when I go to all-night raves on my key ring.

 
None of the keys work in any of the locks at my house. The whistle however could blow an eardrum.

 
Hmmm.

 
When the power goes out at our house, a few things need to be considered. Obviously, things like cooking any food, turning on any lights or humidifying then dehumidifying any rooms are off the table.

 
But so too is washing your hands, flushing a toilet or gathering water to roll out the fresh bread dough for the evening’s all-you-can-eat bread buffet.

 
I have been coming and going from our house for the past eleven years through our garage, never once have I needed a key to get in. I simply press the button on the inside of the garage when I want to leave and press the button on the inside of my van when I come home.

 
It’s an arrangement that has worked for eleven years—until yesterday.

 
When our power went off, I knew I had to get to the school to pick up the kids but I wasn’t sure how to open our garage door without any power and I didn’t want to leave the house unlocked by exiting through one of the doors so I stood in the garage and pretended I was in one of those adventure room game show situations where you have an hour to find clues that will help you get out except I only had about six minutes and aside from my orange whistle and an unnecessary amount of Dollarama sidewalk chalk on a nearby shelf, I had virtually no help.

 
I remember Greg telling me in one of our “If I die” discussions, you need to do smeary-smeary to the door in order to disengage the mechanism and then jigger-jagger to the switch if you ever have a power failure and you want to leave through the garage. I knew I should have been paying attention but when I was showing him how to roll out the bread dough, do you think he took any notes?

 
I saw a red string-type thing with a handle on it and I jumped and grabbed it. I don’t recall Greg saying the words, “Swing on the red rope and the door will magically open” in exactly those words but something felt right.

 
The door did not open.

 
I went back into the house and looked closely at my key ring. Orange whistle, mailbox key, three other keys.

 
What are these even for?

 
Am I just carrying keys around on a ring to create the illusion that I’m an adult? I have no idea what they open.

 
I’ll bet they work in one of those adventure rooms.