Stranded myself in a foreign land
As far as adversities go it was small, but it loomed large at the time: locking myself out just hours before an international trip.

At 1 a.m., I returned to Mt. Glorious, in the mountains outside of Brisbane, Australia, after an evening clubbing. My host left the country two days previously and I was all alone in his house. I prepared for my last sleepover by emptying my pockets.

Then, I remembered I had not yet studied southern constellations. So, I grabbed my southern star chart, walked out, and casually closed the front door. Instantly, I knew: I was locked out of the house!

I quickly ran around the house. All doors and windows were locked and secure. But I had to leave by 9 a.m. to make the noon flight. What was I going to do? For about one-and-a-half hours, I tried to pick locks, all the while jumping around so that the motion-sensitive outdoor lights would generate enough light to see. I found a tool tray in the garage, but it was guarded by a giant Huntsman Spider, so every time I reached into the tool tray I had to shoo the spider away.

Giving up on lock-picking, I decided I had to break a window. I decided to break the guest bathroom toilet window. I began cutting the outer screen of the window in preparation. Then I realized I was just too fat to fit through it. Plus, there was no time to see to the window's repair. So, I had to get help!

Even though this house was fairly-remote, there were a few neighbors nearby. But how could I bang on their front doors at 3 a.m.? They didn't know who I was and I had no identification. And my urgent insistence that I had to enter their absent neighbor's home might strike them as not credible.

The only thing that could work would be to find a locksmith. But how do I call anyone without a phone? I wondered whether there was a pay telephone in the village of Mt. Glorious, which was located about 2 kilometers away through the dark forest. I wasn't sure.

So off I went, tramping through the forest. The sky was overcast, so the darkness was nearly complete. I worried about stumbling over pythons or other animals in the dark. I tried to stay close to the slight glow emanating from the road's center dotted line, so that I might have at least have a last-second warning.

I found the village, utterly deserted at 3:30 a.m. Indeed, there was a phone booth there, but possessing no resources I was limited to toll-free numbers only.

I called "000", the Australian emergency number, and the Brisbane police reluctantly gave me the toll free number of Locksmith #1. He refused my appeal for help - there was little attraction to rescuing someone atop a mountain, 30 km outside of the big city. He referred me to Locksmith #2.

Locksmith #2 said he couldn't respond immediately. He was far away, but if I called back at 6 a.m., he would see what he could do.

I called back Locksmith #1, and again he refused - it was illegal to open locks for people who had confided they weren't the actual homeowner. He said that I should be grateful that Locksmith #2 hadn't turned me down cold.

These two locksmiths were the only two toll-free "express" locksmiths in Brisbane: I would need to find some coins to call others. There were toll-free glaziers, however, if I wanted to return to my host's house and break windows instead. At a loss, I lay down on a bench outside the restaurant and tried to sleep.

For reasons I didn't quite fathom at this semi-tropical locale, dawn came early. Birds like Australian King Parrots, kookaburras, and Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos were active, and I enjoyed listening to their treetop roar.

At 5:30 a.m., I called Locksmith #2 back. He sighed and asked if I had a mobile number. I said no, I had nothing. He said "look, there's nothing much I can do without a mobile number. I want to refer you to another locksmith who lives on that side of Brisbane, but I can't do it without a mobile number. You need to ask someone if you can use their mobile number." I said I was reluctant to ask before, because it had been dark. He said, "yes, but this is Australia. Everyone has a mobile number. And they'll help you too. But you need to ask."

"You need to ask." Walking past a house, I thought I heard some thumping inside. Summoning the courage, I knocked on their door. A young family and their five kids answered the door. They were new to town. They had moved into the house just the day before. The mother looked at her kids, then me, then asked "walking through the woods, weren't you afraid of dingoes?" "Dingoes!", I replied, "no, I was worried about pythons!" She said, "well, they removed dingoes from these hills a while ago and took them over to Moreton Island, but they've been filtering back, and they've been spotted again around here lately." I said "Wow, no I hadn't thought about dingoes!"

The family lent me their mobile phone and I made contact with Locksmith #3. The kids ran around the house and rounded up some coins, which they lent me to contact another locksmith, if needed. The husband decided to travel to the house to see if he could puzzle a way inside. I returned to waiting by the phone booth.

After just half an hour, Locksmith #3 arrived. We returned to the house and met the husband, who hadn't found a way into the house either. I returned his kids' coins to him.

By 8 a.m., the drama had concluded. I was in the house again and I left for the airport on time. Just the damage to the window screen to worry about (and a lingering fear of dingoes).
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 14 Dec 2012, 1:32, Reply)