Well, this is awkward

Walking dogs is awkward. 

There's no way around it. When a human walks dogs in the multiples, things get awkward.

Leashes get tangled. Unmentionable bodily functions get bagged and juggled. And the weather is anybody's guess.

On this day I didn't bother with my umbrella. The rain -- which my friendly, neighborhood weather predictor hadn't predicted -- had disappeared anyway.

Dogs don't mind the rain.

As a regular walker of dogs, I've noticed a tiny miracle of weather. Big fat drops may splash down on my car as I drive from dog house to dog house, and, just as suddenly as they had materialized, they dry up the moment I park.

Of course it could be just my unusually sunny outlook. I am always ready for inclemency. I have a hat, and a coat, and footwear for every season.

Truth be told, this particular dog owner had entrusted me with perhaps the most valuable thing in the world besides her four-legged friend: her garage door opener.

(That sound you may have heard upon reading those last four words was the sound of angels taking flight amid a celestial chorus.)

I did NOT hear that sound, however, because in my hundreds of years on this planet I have neither owned nor operated a garage door opener.

Honestly, when she first suggested I park in her garage during these super sloppy, slushy days of winter, I had no idea how convenient such a luxury would be.

I took the opener and the instructions of how to use it - a simple, one-button toggle - and clipped it to the visor. I wasn't sure I'd ever use it.

Silly.

Of course, I wouldn't just USE it. I would study it; examine its range and speed. I'd press the button at various houses in the neighborhood as I approached to determine which house would prove the furthest away I could start the process of opening the door so that it reached its apex as I crested the driveway.

It turns out the third house from the corner is the charm.

And I would become just a little bit envious as well. Not that I'm not content with my carport, but I'm also not beyond wishing we had a garage door to open with such a miraculous device automatically. It's just that electronics seems to make everything better.

Until you rely on them.

Like how I breezily pull my car into the garage, release my hounds into the backyard through the back door and proceed to spend the next few minutes waiting with my furry friends as they release some pent up energy before our more sedate walk.

Which we do just as soon as I go back into the house and get the leashes ...

Which I left ...

Along with the keys ...

In. The. Car.

Hmm... why is this door locked?

I try the other doors — all locked.

My mind races through my super-sleuth deductions: The handle locks must have some quirky mechanism wherein they turn easily on the inside but remained locked to the outside. A feature that becomes null and void when opened from the outside with a key.

My new reality lit up my thoughts like the lightbulb activated by the garage door opener:

I had locked myself out of the house and my car inside it.

Well, this is awkward.