Chicouti-key.

We have a system here in my Chicouti-home. We live in a bungalow with the back area converted into a hair salon where my mère d'accueil, Mado, works out of. My Chicouti-soeur and I only ever need to enter or leave by the front door. If Mado is home, the door is always left unlocked. But if she goes out, she leaves a key in the mailbox. The key is attached to a long shoelace, which she leaves half-hanging out.

I have no problem with this system. It means I don't have to worry about losing keys, and it communicates very clearly whether Mado's home or not. When we were newly introduced to it, I just made a mental note that it'd probably be really bad if the shoelace ever fell into the mailbox. But not to worry, I told myself, I'm sure that'll never happen.

Just past the midpoint of the program, last Friday night was the night of the "Soirée Québécoise" at school. I usually dread themed events, but I have to say that the whole thing was pretty cute and altogether enjoyable: we got dressed up in whatever "Quebecois" sort of getup we could find - usually just involving aprons, scarves, long dresses, or anything plaid; and then we were split up into families - Tremblay, Simard, Gagnon, or Bouchard - and spent the night dancing (traditional Quebecois dance, of course) and competing against each other in fun little games that the animateurs had planned.

Anyway after the soirée, I was pretty tired. I hopped in the minibus that would take me home (which was driven by the super hot animateur!!!). For some reason, everyone else in the minibus was not tired and hence would not stop talking. So by the time I got off at my stop, I was more than ready to hop into bed. I lifted the lid of the mailbox to retrieve the key and, as my luck would have it, the shoelace fell into the mailbox.

Now I don't know why people need to have such deep mailboxes. As far as I'm concerned, they need only be as high as the width of an envelope. But as it was, I couldn't reach the bottom of the mailbox where the key was now sitting. The box was securely fastened to the house, so I couldn't take it down, and it was too late to ring the doorbell and wake Mado.
In the end I broke a branch off of the tree on the lawn and managed to fish the shoelace out. I rarely mind being so little, but this was one instance in which it just really sucked.