Before morning coffee consumption.

It is always difficult to gauge whether the events that happen before the first cup of the morning are a truly terrible way to start the day or if it just seems that way. It is distressing to need to relieve the overwhelming pressure in your bladder only to encounter a locked door. It is an emergency when a three year old declares he really needs to go as he prances in place like he's on hot coals. What happens if you were to combine them, a locked door, potty emergency and a three year old? What if it all happens before you've had a cup of coffee, within the first ten minutes of regaining consciousness?

Laundry will need to be done.

My son has just started sleeping without diapers. The frequency in which he can wake up dry from naps and night time is almost every day. Today was an exception; a locked door when he was in pursuit of a bathroom. How exactly he managed to lock himself out, I am still not sure. It was an opened, unlocked door when I went to bed. I can only postulate that he was sleep walking, and woke up when he couldn't hold it in anymore.

I was a terrible sleep walker. There was the time I was trying to leave the family apartment. A loud repeated thumping drew my parents from their bed to find me trying to open the door and walk through it at the same time. Which just ended up with me walking into the door over and over again. Then there was the night I was convinced the apartment was on fire. Prepared to break open the window and throw the rope down so I could repel to safety, I was stopped by my sister. She had to convince me there was no smoke and no heat, so there couldn't be a fire before I would go to sleep. During my early elementary years, obstacle course with jingle bells littered the hallways at night to ensure my parents would wake up before took a midnight stroll to the playground.

Well, this tale gets better. We actually have a second bathroom, so I wasn't overly concerned with getting that door open but more interest in getting my son out of his soiled clothes. We went to open the door to his room, but that door was locked too. (I guess I know what he was dreaming about.) Going to the cabinet above the dryer where a set of screwdrivers is kept in order to change the batteries to his toys, I couldn't find one the right size to pop the lock. Putting on my flip flops, I ventured in my pajamas to the shed into the backyard. I still couldn't find the right screw driver. Normally I would just call and ask my husband where it is, but he is out working on the east coast. With the time difference I knew he would already be working and not able to answer the phone.

That is another question. Why do these problems always seem to happen when Dads leave? In elementary school, I earned a gerbil for my good grades. It was black with a white stripe down it's middle. With the originality of an eight year old, I named it Oreo. My dad, a captain in the Army, would have to be gone for weeks at a time. It was only during these training or exercise absences that Oreo would prove to us that he knew how to escape. He had chewed the knob attaching the door on the top of his cage so he could flip it open while leaving it locked. It took us days to find him. We would leave out food to lure and trap him. It took emptying the closet to find him on a gerbil made bed of cedar chips he had carried from his cage with a stash of food piled up next to him.

In the end, a screwdriver from my sewing machine repair kit fit into the hole on the center of the door knob. Lacking the dexterity of a thief it took me awhile, but I did eventually pop the lock. Once everyone was dressed for the day with the soiled clothes in the wash, I was able to make coffee. The utilitarian Dominican Republic roast that I had ground up by accident (I meant to grind a Kope Kapuna blend) was the perfect cup. My morning had already had more excitement and surprises than Christmas. So the unpretentious and almost nondescript flavors were exactly what I needed. The only drop that didn't get drunk was the one that fell onto the counter.