This is going to be one of those "Look at the wacky things that happen to me" kinds of blog that everyone does at some time or another…which I suppose just goes to show that wacky things happen to us all. What a wacky species we are.

            So let me set the scene: My older brother Packy and his wife Linda occasionally ask me to stay at their house when they go on vacation, mainly to keep their three "children" (beagles) company. I'm always happy to do this, because their house is located in an as-yet not fully developed or bulldozed patch of woods out in Kingston Springs. They have a lovely and scenic walking trail that covers the entire perimeter of woods that constitutes their property, and it makes for a fine place to stroll while pondering life's complexities. The beagles themselves are fairly low maintenance, being gentle creatures, portly in the manner of most well-fed Guinn animals, and spend most of the time imitating throw pillows (if throw pillows could snore) on the various couches and beds. In all, it's just far enough away from Nashville to feel like "getting away from it all", plus it's only 20 minutes from my parents' house so I can go visit them as well during my stay.

            Last Tuesday, Pack and Linda left to spend Thanksgiving with her family in West Virginia. Since my Sony overlords had given us most of the rest of the week off, I arrived at their house Tuesday night looking forward to a few quiet days ahead with nothing pulling me back into the city (certainly not the crush of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping mania). It was already dark, and growing a bit chilly. As it turned out, it was the coldest night of the entire week --- a significant detail, as we shall soon see. I retrieved the door key from its hiding place, and let myself in, to a chorus of wails and howls from the beagles ("mountain music" my friend Jack used to call it), who were happy to see that some two-legged entity was there to ensure that there would be a supper that night. I threw the key on the kitchen table (another significant detail), fixed the beagles their supper and did the same for myself. After eating, I kicked off my shoes and sat down with my guitar and the remote with which to peruse the satellite channels on the 50-inch widescreen TV. Hey, I said the place was in the woods, I didn't say it doesn't have all the modern conveniences.

            The oldest beagle, Murphy, though she has more energy than most dogs half her age, is somewhat arthritic and creaky, and has a hard time getting down the back stairs into the fenced-in back yard. I'd been given the okay to let her go do her "business" in the front yard, since she's too feeble to run off chasing some scent three counties away like the younger dogs would do. Murph also likes to wait until I get really comfortable before she hobbles over to the door and starts whining and doing her one-legged hop (quite a trick for a four-legged arthritic beagle). So I sighed and dutifully opened the front door, let Murphy out onto the front porch, closed the front door behind me so Corky and Sam (the younger beagles) couldn't get out, then opened the small gate at the top of the porch stairs. Murphy hopped the three steps to the ground, and I turned to go back inside where it was warm.

            AND FOUND THE FRONT DOOR LOCKED.

            That didn't seem quite possible, since it had to have been unlocked for me to have let myself and Murph outside. I assumed it must have been jammed, or possibly the welcome mat had gotten bunched up underneath it. I threw my shoulder into it a couple times, which of course never works like it does in the movies. I tried the knob and it didn't budge, and I had to face the fact that it was fer-chrissake locked as all hell.

            A succession of thoughts ran rapid-fire through my head, which were: (1) The key was sitting on the kitchen table because I had not put it back in its hiding place out front, (2) Also inside were my cell phone, car keys, coat, and shoes, (3) I was in my t-shirt, jeans, and socks and already my feet were growing numb, and (4) there were two back doors…could one of them be unlocked?

            Nope.

            So after my futile check of the back doors (hoping not to step in something bad in my sock feet…it was the beagles' back yard/bathroom, after all), I was faced with the truth: me and Murphy, locked outside in the cold. So I put Murph back on the front porch and closed the gate. Just about then, I heard the house phone ring from inside. The answering machine picks up, and it's Packy's voice. He was calling from West Virginia but I couldn't make out what he's calling to tell me. Well, I had bigger problems at the moment.

(STAY WITH ME BECAUSE THERE'S A PUNCHLINE AT THE END OF ALL THIS.)

I was realizing I had to either break a window, or rely on the kindness of strangers…which would mean going knocking on doors in the dark of the night. I wasn't eager to vandalize my brother's property, so I decided on the latter, and began the trek to the nearest house. I say "trek" because that's what it was.

It's funny how the things you appreciate about the country can be real negatives under certain situations. To wit:

-There's a LOT of distance between each driveway.

- There are no streetlights.

- Every driveway is gravel.

- 99% of the households are under guardianship of the canine variety.

            So I steeled my resolve, said "Right" in my best John Cleese impersonation, and hit the dark and (mercifully) paved main road. Becoming ever more aware of the blocks of ice that were once my feet, I thought I could warm myself up a bit by running, which I did.

            Being a pop culture junkie, I have a tendency to see life a lot of times in cinematic terms. Now I couldn't help but flash on Dustin Hoffman from MARATHON MAN. Remember the endless footage of him running through the city at night, clad only in his pajama pants? This was sort of the rural version of the same thing. Unlike Hoffman, I didn't have Nazi War criminals on my trail, but I was setting various Germanic breeds of dogs to howling with my nocturnal sprint.

            So I reach the first house, which presents all the classic obstacles, and I pick my way up the rocky driveway while a dog barks at me from the front porch. He's wagging his tail but they are deceptive, these creatures. He might be trying to draw me in close enough to strike. Still, the porch light is on and there is a car in the drive so it might be worth a risk. I get as close as I can and start calling out, "Hallooooo", and then "Hello the House!" and then getting ever more silly, like "Is the Lord or Lady at Home" when it becomes obvious no one's home or at least not planning on leaving their warm bed. (No, I didn't call out "Land Shark!" I'm more original than that).

            So I make my way back down the drive, the dog hurling mocking barks at my back, and the sharp rocks eliciting ever more inventive verbal obscenities from me as they cut into my feet. Was it that long ago that I was a country boy, running barefoot across this kind of terrain in my leathery bare feet of youth? Apparently, yes.

            Back to the road, now. The next two houses were completely dark. No cars in the drive. So I kept running.

            A car came down the road, (the only one that would pass during this whole ordeal) and I did manage to wave him down. It was a single driver, male, and I asked if he had a cell phone. Nope. All the people that have cell phones, but not this guy. He was nice enough while I explained my story, but turned down my request for a ride to the nearest market (which, admittedly, wasn't all that near). He said he was sorry but he had to get to an appointment. An "appointment"? At 10pm? Who was she and how much was she charging?

            Now, I'll admit there is a price to be paid for looking the way I generally do. You have to accept that certain people still believe that the longer the hair on a guy, the more dangerous/crazy/dirty/liberal he is. So I realize I might have had more luck getting a ride if I'd had short hair and wore a tie (hopefully one that would match my socks) or better yet, a mullet, a Skynyrd shirt, and a Black No. 3 cap. Still, I would have hoped he could see I couldn't be hiding a gun anywhere on my under-clothed person, and look at my freezing feet and guess that my story was on the level. Plus, he was twice my size at least…I really don't think I could have been much threat, all things considered. But, he apologized and sped off down the lonely road. I thought about waving my fist and yelling "LOUSYNOGOODSONOFABITCHINBASTARD!!" just for theatrical effect, but I really wasn't all that mad. It was just that kind of night. So I said "Right!" and made for the next house.

            Again, a gravel driveway, and this time there was a fence around the front yard. I'd either have to open the gate or climb over the fence to reach the front porch. No sound of a dog, but somehow there was something a bit ominous that kept me from crossing that fence. So I got as close as I could to the house, began yelling and calling again, to no response.

(Later, I got a look at this house in the daylight, and lo and behold, they did indeed have a Doberman within the fence. I felt my instincts had served me well, since this was no doubt one of those "stealth" Dobermans that don't make a sound as they sever your carotid artery in one pass and are back in their doghouse chewing on Mr. Whiskers before your lifeblood has finished pumping out onto the grass)

I decided I was going to try one more house before giving up, going back, and breaking out one of my brother's friggin' windows in his accursed lovely locked house. I was really cold and my feet felt like they were pulped from all the gravel-walking. I found a dwelling that still had its lights on, and no dogs on guard, so I made it up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. I stood way back from the door so as not to appear threatening (and in case I had to perform a backwards somersault to avoid a double-barrel shotgun blast. You learn these skills growing up country) but the nice fellow that came to the door listened patiently as I explained my predicament, then he called my parents to verify who I was. My parents didn't have a spare key, but they would come pick me up and I could at least crash at their house that night. Then I was able to call Pack and Linda in West Virginia (yeah, this nice guy let me chew up a lot of his phone minutes with this business. That's just how neighbors are in the country). They felt very bad for my troubles, which Linda showed by laughing hysterically over the phone. I didn't take it badly, my friend Shannon does the same thing when things get really bad…it's more a nervous reaction than it is frivolity. It's better than vomiting, I suppose.

(A final aside here: if you're a Guinn male, your good qualities are likely to be loyalty, a good heart, dependability, and a certain patient, plodding intellect. However, a steel-trap mind you ain't got, so it behooves you to marry sharp, capable women, which my Dad did, and so did Pack. Linda proved this when she asked me to find out if the man whose door I had darkened happened to have any children. Her thinking was that a child would be able to get into their house through the "doggy door" around back. Geez, I thought, I would have stood here in my cold Grinch feet for a year without thinking of that. Well, the guy did have kids…who were about a year old. So no help there, although now that the seed is planted, when those kids hit about three there will probably be a string of crimes throughout Kingston Springs, wherever there are doggy doors to be found.)

As it turned out, a good friend of Pack's had a spare key, so he was called and asked to come over in the morning to let me in the house. He said this would not be a problem. Dad came and picked me up, and I crashed at the folks' house. Coincidentally, they had just been going through a closet that week and found several of my old pairs of tennis shoes, so at least I had shoes to wear when Dad brought me back over to meet the guy with the key. As for the beagles, they slept away the night in blissful unawareness of human folly, to the sound of the NFL Network on the TV that was left running all night. And all was right with the world.

I promised you a punch line. Here it is:

Remember I said that about 10 minutes after I realized I was hopelessly locked out, I heard the phone ring, and heard my brother's voice leaving an unintelligible message on the machine? The message was as follows:

"Hi Troy, it's Pack. I just realized I forgot to warn you about the front door knob. Even if it's locked, you can still turn the knob from inside, so it'll trick you into thinking that it's unlocked. Be sure and keep that extra key outside because I've accidentally locked myself out several times. Just wanted to let you know. Be sure and pet the dogs for us. Oh, and Go Vols."