The "Rope Around the Dresser and Bed" Story

It was an ordinary day. Talking with Mike about our weekends. Mike works with me in the print shop at Manheim Township High School during the summer doing the school's in-house printing. Has been with me over 30 years now. He was telling me about his recent vacation he took throughout New England. During one stop he and his wife Anne, stayed at a AAA one star hotel. He figured if AAA gave it a rating, it must be OK. Well he starts to describe it and then tells me that when they went to bed they ........ "Let me guess," I said. "You pulled the bed in front of the door!" He replied, "Almost. We wedged a chair under the door knob." Made me think of the time Carol and I took a long weekend and traveled to the Jersey Shore. Got my mom and dad to babysit our three kids and left on a Friday morning for the weekend. Went to The Golden Inn and Resort in Avalon, NJ. Nice place with a restaurant, tons of rooms, and a beach off the one end of the hotel. We had a room on the second floor with a balcony that we could see the ocean. Only thing about it was that you couldn't lock the sliding door. Now I know it was on the second floor, but you could look around the barrier to the next unit and see in their door. So, I figured if someone wanted to break in our room, they could climb around the barrier and open the door and have access to our room. I know, no one would do that. Or would they? I wasn't taking any chances. I knew that I wouldn't sleep at night if I thought someone may break into the room while I was in bed. And, I reasoned that the Golden Inn must know that the door doesn't lock and may rent the next room to someone who wanted steal all my stuff. So, I got a heavy rope out of the car trunk that I used to tow my other car with at times and brought it up to the room. Can't imagine what the people who saw me do it must have thought. I proceeded to tie the rope to the handle of the door, around the dresser, and around the one post of our bed. If anyone was going to get into the room, they would have to move our bed and it would wake me. Carol said, "You sleep so sound, it'll never wake you!" But at least I now could get into that sound sleep, knowing nobody was going to steal my stuff! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.