I am fairly tall...for a girl.
Almost 5'7.
So usually I can reach the things I need without asking for help.
But a couple of days ago my power went out.
No lights, no WiFi, and...
No power to my garage door.
That meant that I couldn't get the car out and go to the coffee shop to work until it came back on.
I hadn't even thought of that. Now what?
Well, there's a cord that hangs down from the garage ceiling that can be used to manually open my garage door.
I've never had to use it before.
I reached up to grab it.
It hung down far enough for me to touch it with my fingertips, but not quite far enough for me to get a good enough grip to pull the door back at the angle I needed.
Hmmm...what to do?
I went inside and got a folding chair. Luckily, I hadn't put them all away from the party last weekend.
I opened the chair and stood on it. It was a little wobbly, but I figured I could manage.
I pulled on the rope, leaning back with it. The garage door started to go up.
I smiled. See...I don't need no stinkin' help!
Then I realized that I would have to KEEP moving backward with the rope to pull the door all the way open.
I leaned back further, and further, and...the chair started to fold up beneath me. I lost my footing and had to lean into my car to get my bearings.
That was not going to be very safe.
Better to try a different approach than fall and crack my head open on the garage floor.
I looked around for rope to tie on to the cord, but couldn't find any.
Made a mental note to add rope to my shopping list.
I scoured the garage door for signs of any handles on it where I could pull it up manually that way.
None. I was stuck.
I could either call off work until the power and the WiFi came back on, or wake up my son, who was home sick and sleeping.
By that time, I have to admit I was a bit frustrated. It had already been a long week and I had important things to get done at work that day.
Why did all the little stupid stuff have to happen at the same time?
I walked into the house and found my son awake. Probably from all the noise I was making in the garage.
He stands easily 3 inches taller than me.
He came out to the garage, grabbed the cord with no problem, and calmly pulled the garage door up.
I backed the car out of the garage so he could close the door, thanked him, and he went back to bed.
Problem solved.
I made it to the coffee shop, got the work done that I needed to do, and the power came back on a few hours later.
In the grand scheme of things, this was a blip in my week. One of many, but still just a blip.
I'm going to fix that cord in my garage so it hangs down just a little bit lower.
But I'm also going to remember this the next time I'm in this predicament.
When the chair starts to fold up beneath me, it's time to call in the reserves.
Sometimes it doesn't matter how tall we are.
Sometimes we just can't reach.
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