Lights out

In the great state of Florida, we sometimes have storms. And sometimes, those storms cause power outages. And sometimes, the power just goes out even if there is no storm.

And that's what happened today.

The kids and I were at home, enjoying our Saturday, and I told them we'd head to the Halloween store to get some costume accessories. No sooner had we gone out to load up in the car, out went the power.

Grrrrreeeeaaat.

What's the problem?

The problem is that my car is in the garage. And our garage door needs power to go up, allowing my car to back out. Now, I know what your saying. Giant eye roll and, "Pull the red cord and lift the door yourself, lazy!" Well, that's exactly what I did.

Unfortunately, the garage door element that holds the door up when said power is out was not on/in/around/a part of our garage door.

So, I'd lift it up. It would fall back down. I'd THROW it up. It would come back down. It would remain above the ground about 2 feet, but my car is a little larger than that. So there's the problem.

I could hold the door up, arms extended over my head, and standing on my tippy toes, but that would leave the kids in charge of backing the car out of the garage. Not a good idea.

If Nugget were to stand on Strip's shoulders, they could probably hold it up high enough, but that probably falls in the "Not a good idea" category, too.

I was left with one choice; get creative.

And the results? Well, they speak for themselves:

Yup. Let's see... trash can! Hmm that's not tall enough... Trash can AND a hard cooler! Nope, still not tall enough... Oh! Rolling trash can + cooler + empty trash can= Open garage door!

After I stabilized my tower, I locked the kids and dog in the house, cranked the car and prayed nothing slipped. A few seconds later, the car was out of the garage, the kids were safely buckled, our trash cans were back in their spots, and we were pulling out of the driveway!

And so what if the power came back on as we pulled away....