Learning to Roll with The Little Stuff

The first winter we owned the cottage (2006) a Jehovah's Witness apparently opened the front storm door to leave a flyer --- I know because a Watchtower promotional flyer was hanging from the inside door's outside knob --- but just as apparently didn't fully close the front storm door, because the relentlessly constant, and, oftentimes, brutally strong, southwest wind from the lake tore the storm door off, twisting it into a weird aluminum and glass sculpture. (Ceci n'est pas une porte?) And so, as of winter 2007, we started latching the (new) storm door from the inside when we closed the place. And, as much of a shock as this might seem, we never did subscribe to that magazine.

Flash forward to today... Row and I drove down to Crystal, about an hour's drive, to check on some things, drop off some stuff, and pick up some other stuff. When we arrived at the cottage, we found that a snow drift, which had formed on the brand-new-as-of-last-August back stoop, had melted and refrozen enough times to transform itself into an impenetrable ice drift that now prevented the back storm door from being opened.

With the front storm door securely latched from the inside, as I mentioned previously, and the rear door rendered unopenable by the ice dam --- and not having a shovel or icebreaker because both were inside the safely locked garage, the key to which was inside the safely locked house --- we had no choice but to declare the place functionally impregnable, throw up our hands, laugh about it, capitulate to fate, and head home.

But it wasn't a total loss: it was a beautifully sunny day, a fun round-trip drive with Row, and a perfect excuse to have spare garage keys made, which we'll leave in our respective glove boxes... or cover the rear stoop... or rethink latching the front door...or stop on the way home at the Shepherd Bar for a beer.

Being back in Michigan has been enlightening, and there are only worse things.