An Unusual Beach Story
I never miss an opportunity to watch the sunrise on the beach, unless I’m riding on sixteen hours of sleep over a four day period. In this case I wasn’t making any commitments, but my eyes popped open at 5:44. I peeped out the window to a beautiful predawn sky, and I quickly made the decision to go because it was the last of the opportunities. According my the weather app, the sun would rise at 6:10. We were staying in a beach house full of family but you can’t be late for a sunrise so I didn’t bother to wake anyone else.
I told my husband that I was off to watch the sunrise. His grunt for a response meant he may or may not have heard me, so I texted my mom just in case I came up missing.
So I was on my way back from the beach. It was 0.1 miles away, which meant it was literally across the street. I was on a sunrise high as I walked back to the house with tunnel vision as I shared photos to facebook. My plan was to go upstairs and have coffee on one of the balconies before I started packing up.
I put in the door code and it didn’t work. I’d been reciting it in my head while I was out, so I felt like it was correct, but we’d had some trouble with the code on the day we checked in. I reviewed the text message to the group and verified the code I put in was indeed correct. I tried about five times. I decided to try the back door. I was happy to be tall enough to reach over the fence to unlatch it to let myself in. I walked to the back door but unfortunately it was locked too. With all the goings on the night before I was actually impressed that someone remembered to lock it.
My mom was up because she texted back wishing she had been able to wake up and go with me. It was 6:35 when I texted and said, “Code doesn’t work and the back is locked.” She texted back, “I’ll come.” I told her to take her time because I knew her knees hurt and she was still in the bed. I stood around the carport waiting. About five minutes later she texted back, “Your dad is coming.” It seemed to take daddy a long time too. I kept peering through the window and up the stairs to watch for him. I paced around the carport and looked at my husband’s truck, surprised that he’d taken the cover off of the back. I peered in and wondered whose stuff was in there. Then I looked around at the other vehicles. I hadn’t paid attention to what everyone else was driving, so I relaxed a little when I saw Virginia plates. At least one rental had come from Virginia. But then I saw more cars than I thought we had and my eyes landed on a white jeep that I KNEW didn’t belong to any of my family.
I was at the WRONG house! I’d now been waiting for daddy for FOUR minutes. I’d been at the doors, in the backyard and peeping into the back of the wrong truck for almost ten minutes! As I was fleeing the scene of the crime and texting mom again, I almost got run over by a bicycle. I had to apologize. I looked up at the house number. I was at 1110 and should have been at 1106. When I got to 1106, I put the code in and it worked.
As I walked up the stairwell in our house, I imagined myself getting in the back door of the other house and walking all the way up to the 3rd floor kitchen before I realized I was in the wrong place. I am SO glad they locked their back door. I’d bet money that ours was unlocked. By this point I was laughing at myself. Out loud laughing.
When I walked into the kitchen, a few other family members were up. Daddy was playing with one of the babies. He said, “I came down there a couple times, I thought you went back to the beach.” He said he’d even checked to see if I was sitting back in the backyard. He went to tell my mom that I wasn’t there. She said she was about to yell and say, “You can’t find nuthin!” you know because they can’t. But this was a whole 48-year-old daughter supposedly at the front door, so the “can’t find it” scenario wasn’t really applicable.
I shared with the kitchen family what had happened and we had a good laugh about it.
I worried later that I could have come up missing - DOA from being run over by a bike.
1106 N. Virginia Dare Trail - the right house