Olive has discovered a fun game to play while I make the bed. She jumps on the bed and hides under the covers. Her crazy polydactyl claws get stuck .

Last Thursday, I had a dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned. An hour before my appointment the power went out.

I checked my iphone and the power company predicted power would be restored in four hours. They didn’t give the cause.

I called the dental office to let them know I couldn’t get my car out of the garage because the power was out.

The receptionist told me to pull the red cord and then I could manually lift the garage door. I hung up, pulled the red cord, but couldn’t lift the garage door. So I asked my husband to try.

“No. I’m not going to mess with the garage door,” he said. He wanted to leave well enough alone and wait for the power to go on. “Just call them and reschedule,” he said.

The dentist was able to swap my appointment with somebody on Monday morning. It was all good.

A neighbor called us and said she was at the hair dresser and would we please go to her house and invite her husband over. He had been walking their dog when the power went out. He was sitting freezing in the back yard with their dog. He had exited the locked house through the garage and without power, the buttons to open the garage door were worthless.

The wife said she asked him to come over to our house, but he didn’t want to be a bother. My husband returned with our neighbor and Rascal, a poodle bichon, a few minutes later.

The power was restored a few hours earlier than predicted and life was good.

But then Friday morning came. We had an electrician over to see why a few outlets inside and lights outside don’t work. My husband clicked to open the garage door for the electrician. The motor went on but the door didn’t open!

I saw a sticker with the garage door company name and number. I quickly called them in a panic. After all our dishwasher AND garbage disposal already quit working earlier. I was worried everything was going wrong in our “new” house all at once.

The garage door repair man came a few hours later. I told him we had had a power outage the day before and I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the double-sized garage door not opening.

“Did anyone pull on the red cord and manually open and close the garage door?” he asked.

“No, absolutely not,” my husband said. “We didn’t want to do that for the exact reason that we could hurt something.”

I was standing slightly behind my husband and sheepishly raised my hand. “I did,” I said.

The garage door man climbed a ladder under the garage motor, pressed a lever and presto! The garage door worked. The price tag: $230.

“Why didn’t you tell me you pulled the red cord?” my husband asked.

“You didn’t ask and the dentist told me to,” I explained. My husband shook his head and walked away.

The garage door man said he’d service our garage door and he also fixed the buttons outside which have never worked. So, now we can also get locked out of our house if the power goes out while we’re on a walk.

What embarrassing things have you done that compare with me pulling the red cord?