By Rick Smith,
It was a familiar sound – that muffled growling noise off in the distance.
Then came the startled look on my wife’s face as she exclaimed with a tone of alarm, “Rick, that’s our garage door opening!”
“What?” I momentarily debated before jumping up from my chair and dashing to the garage access through the kitchen. Sure enough, the garage door was finishing its opening cycle. I pushed the wall button and the door closed.
“What the heck?” I said to myself.
A creepy feeling came over me. Who was opening our garage door? We had two openers, one in the car and a spare in the kitchen. I looked in the car and there hooked on the driver’s visor was one opener. I checked the kitchen drawer for the other. Missing!
Just then the garage door began opening again. “Oh, no,” I said to myself, hustling back to the garage to stop the door and close it again. I peered outside as the door was closing but could see no one around.
A worst case scenario spun in my head. We had heard all about various scams people use to get into your home from numerous police visits to our HOA. “Don’t leave your remote control in your vehicle when it’s in for service,” we’d heard. “Scratch your address off your vehicle registration,” was also advised.
I knew I could detach the automatic door opener by a simple pull on a release pin – which I did. “There,” I said to myself, “now whoever is trying to get in will be shut out.”
Right then the automatic opener began again. The door did not open this time, but the loud growling noise seemed like an angry unknown force letting me know it was not happy. I went to the wall switch and stopped the growl.
“Where is that spare opener?” I challenged myself. I knew I’d been the last to have used it, but I could not recall what I’d done with it instead of returning it to its place in the kitchen.
“Maybe Istook it upstairs with me,” I suggested to myself. I decided to run upstairs and look on a shelf where I’ll put items that are in my pocket.
As I hurried past my wife in the living room I updated her, “If you hear that garage door opening again, go hit the button in the garage. I disconnected the door so it won’t open.” I told her I wasn’t sure what was happening but that I wanted to check upstairs for the spare garage door opener.
But to no avail, came up empty – no spare opener upstairs. “Where is it?” I said to myself.
Just then – the angry unknown force began again. Somebody was trying to open the garage door that wouldn’t open. I hurried back downstairs, past my wife (who hadn’t gotten up) into the garage to stop the growl.
Back inside, my wife offered some help, “Well, where were you when you used it last?” she asked.
“On a walk with Buster,” I replied. I don’t know why I didn’t put it back when we came home.
Wishing he could talk, I turned to our puppy Buster and said “What did I do with that opener Buster boy?”
Buster looked right back at me with the sweetest little expression of compassion on his face – and with that garage door opener clutched loosely in his little front teeth.
Rick Smith is a resident of Cave Creek and a not-frequent-enough contributor to The Peak. Rick is a published author and former editor. His book, REMF, describes his behind-the-line experiences in Viet Nam.
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