PROLOGUE… When Becky’s power went out, she and her hubs realized their battery back-up for their important stuff wasn’t working. Hubs got a new one and hooked it all up before leaving for work one morning.
ACT ONE
BECKY ENTERS, a look of befuddlement fixes to her face, and remains for an uncomfortably long time.
Why? Because while she is finishing her morning’s work, the new battery back-up starts clicking and beeping. “Must be because it’s new,” she thinks.
Two seconds later, the power goes out. “La di dah, it’s lunchtime anyway. Excellent excuse to get some Japanese take-out.” She calls in her order. Ready in 10 minutes. Perfect. She gets her shoes on and lets Nala out to piddle.
At nine minutes, Becky pushes the garage door opener. “Ha, ha. Silly me. The power is out.” She pulls the red handle to release the door. She tries to lift the door. Nothing. She tries again. Nothing.
She calls her husband. “Wah. Can you either rescue me or my salmon teriyaki?”
“Try the handle on the outside of the garage door,” he says helpfully, while eating his own lunch.
“Of course,” Becky says. “Silly me.” She skips out the front door and stares at the garage where she finds no handle.
Not wanting to suffer starvation at the hands of a stupid door, she goes back into the garage, yanks the red handle harder, then executes a perfect dead lift, flinging the door to the top of the track. “I am Woman, hear me roar,” she proclaims proudly to nobody.
Still feeling all Helen-Reddy-tastic, she gets in her car, parks in the driveway, then emerges from the car to pull the garage door shut.
“THERE’S STILL NO HANDLE ON THE OUTSIDE!” she yells in her head to Helen Reddy.
Becky then gingerly inches down the door using the dangerous gaps in the sections. She tries mightily not to get her fingers pinched, all the while wondering, if the worst happens, who will hear her plaintive cries of pain and humiliation?
Not to worry, Best Beloved. The door closes, she drives away to picks up her food.
“Enjoy your lunch!” says the cashier.
“You too!” Becky says enthusiastically and nonsensically.
She gets home, takes her first bite of miso soup and the power is magically restored.
ACT TWO
After lunch, Becky cleans up then collects the containers to dump in the trash bin in the garage. Earlier, because the garage was dark, she had opened the side door for light. In the garage, Becky sees Nala staring at her. “What am I doing in the garage?” the poor dog wonders. “I don’t belong here.”
The two of them get that straightened out and Becky decides to bring the car back in. “I know how to do this,” she thinks, flexing her biceps.
And she did. Becky heaves up the door, drives in and parks. On her way in the house, she hits the button to lower the door. Garage mechanism screeches. She hits the button again. Silence. Gently pushes the button. Screech. Silences it.
Hmm. Becky decides she must pull it down by hand one last time and live the rest of her life inside her darkened house, leaving only to haunt the neighborhood like Miss Havisham in her tattered wedding dress and a handful of cake not even fit for the mice.
She pulls the door down by hand and hears a grinding of metal that hurts her teeth. It slams to a stop about 6 inches from the floor.
“Now I’ve ruined the door. Perfect.” Becky walks away, hatching a plan to blame hubs when he tries to open the door when he comes home after work. At the threshold of the house, because Becky is a bear of very little remembery, she hits the button.
The door automatically closes the rest of the way.
Becky doesn’t look back.
THE END