I’m going to tell you a story about something that didn’t happen. But it could have happened, almost did happen, and the telling of what could have happened is worthy and amusing.

I started a new job last week (relevant contextual detail) and I was scheduled to go into work in the afternoon. I have not yet been at this job for a full week. I do not know my boss’s phone number, my department’s phone number, or any other means of contacting my employer.

I was doing the morning chores, washing dishes, the usual. Because it was the morning and my girlfriend had already left for work, I was not wearing pants of any kind (although to be fair, I usually don’t wear pants when she’s here, either). Regardless, it’s just me in my boxers and my undershirt.

The recycling was full and had been moved to the front porch for transfer once I was done with everything else. I picked up an empty box and carried it outside to put with the other materials. As I did so, I noticed the front door was swinging shut behind me. In a moment of ninja reflexes, I caught the door a half-second before it closed. Then I tried the doorknob, to see what would have happened if I hadn’t caught it.

It was locked.

Imagine being locked out of your house in your underwear. You didn’t carry your cell phone outside with you, so you have no way of calling your girlfriend to come home and let you back in. You don’t have your keys and you don’t have a secret key squirreled away somewhere outside. Your house is a second & third story condo, so climbing through a window to get back in is out, not to mention you’re really particular about keeping all the doors and windows locked to prevent someone else from doing the exact same thing.

And you can’t even just wait for your girlfriend to come home and free you from your predicament, because she’s gone for the next eight hours and you have a new job you need to be at yourself before then.

And you don’t really know your neighbors all that well, because you’re somewhat of a shy person, so if you did go to a neighbor for help (say, to call your girlfriend to come home and let your ass back in or to call a locksmith), you get to do that in your underwear (and not your best, this-is-the-underwear-I’d-wear-if-I-spontaneously-became-a-stripper underwear, but the It’s-laundry-day-and-this-was-the-only-thing-that-was-clean underwear).

And if you decide you don’t want to confront your neighbors, the only other way to reach your girlfriend would be to walk a mile down the road (in your underwear!) and approach the receptionist’s desk at her office (which is now the same office that you just started working at) and ask the receptionist to page her for you and you can be assured that your new boss and all of your co-workers in your new department would probably arrive back from lunch together at that exact moment and you would forever be known (assuming you still have a job) as that guy who showed up to the office in his underwear.

Also, I forgot to mention that I wasn’t wearing shoes. So there’s that.

So there you go. A story about how a locked front door, a gust of wind, and my underwear very nearly started a chain reaction that would have led to me getting arrested after walking into Target to steal a pair of jeans.

I’m glad it didn’t happen. I do feel bad for the alternate-universe version of myself who is now dealing with all of that, however.