I came home from work one evening and found a toothpick jammed in my lock. Then it happened again. Picture me outside my own house, wielding tweezers like some deranged locksmith.
I didn’t report it. I set a trap… because if someone wanted to play weird little games, I had one better.
After 14 hours of bedpans, vomit, and a guy who insisted his “friend” was the one who “accidentally” sat on a remote control, I dragged my scrub-wearing, caffeine-depleted body home. All I wanted was a hot shower, half a frozen pizza, and blessed silence.
Instead, I found myself standing in thirty-degree weather, staring at my front door like it had just slapped me… because my key wouldn’t go in.
I tried again. Nothing.
Wiggled it. Nope. I turned it upside down because sometimes keys are just moody like that.
Still nothing worked.
“Come on,” I muttered, jiggling harder. “I’ve had patients at the ER less difficult than you today.”
That’s when I noticed something small wedged deep in the keyhole. I squinted, using my phone flashlight to get a better look.
There was a toothpick jammed in the lock.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, poking at it helplessly with my car key. I jiggled, cursed, even tried poking it out with a bobby pin. Nothing worked.
Fifteen minutes later, I was still standing there with frozen toes and a colorful vocabulary that would make my patients blush.
I gave up and called my brother.
“Danny?
It’s me. I’m locked out.”
“Again? Did you lose your keys at the hospital?
Because last time—”
“No, there’s a toothpick stuck in my lock.”
“What the hell? I’ll be right over.”
Ten minutes later, Danny’s rusted pickup rolled into my driveway. He hopped out wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt that read “I PAUSED MY GAME TO BE HERE.”
“Shouldn’t you be wearing a coat?”
“Shouldn’t you be inside your house?” he countered, brandishing a miniature toolkit like he was about to defuse a bomb.
I watched as he examined the lock, his breath forming little clouds in the cold air.
“Yep!
That’s a toothpick in there,” he said, fishing a pair of tweezers from his kit. “And it didn’t get there by accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone put it there… on purpose.” He worked silently for a few minutes, then triumphantly held up a tiny wooden splinter.
“There we go. Try it now.”
The key slid in smoothly and I sighed with relief.
“You think it was just kids?” I asked hopefully.
Danny shook his head. “Kids don’t have this kind of patience.
Call me if it happens again, okay?”
“It won’t!” I said confidently.
“Famous last words,” he called over his shoulder as he headed back to his truck.
And yup! It happened again. Exactly 24 hours later.
“You’re kidding me,” Danny said when I FaceTimed him.
I could hear the clinking of beer bottles in the background.
“Maybe I have a really dedicated enemy at the homeowners’ association? I did put up those Christmas lights in February.”
Danny showed up looking mildly insulted at the universe.
“Alright,” he said, brushing past me, “now I’m interested.”
“This is targeted. Want to catch them?”
“With what? A mousetrap?” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Better.
I’ve got a security camera. Used it to catch the raccoons that kept knocking over my garbage cans. I’ll set it up tomorrow.”
The next morning, Danny arrived with a camera that looked like it had survived several wars and a fall from a cliff.
“This thing still works?” I asked dubiously.
“Of course it works.
It’s built like a Nokia phone.” He climbed the maple tree in my front yard with surprising agility for someone whose exercise regimen consisted mainly of walking to the fridge.
“Perfect angle. It’ll catch anyone coming up to your door, and you’ll get the footage straight to your phone.”
That evening, I sat in my car, hunched over my phone like a teenager waiting for a text back from their crush.
At 7:14 p.m., my phone buzzed.
One new video popped up, and my stomach did a somersault when I watched the footage.
“JOSH??”
Yup! My ex-boyfriend. The one I’d caught sending late-night texts to his “work friend” Amber while I was pulling double shifts at the hospital.
The one who’d been “working late” at the office when his credit card was busy buying dinner for two at restaurants I’d been begging him to take me to for months.
I watched the video three times, not believing my eyes. There he was, in his stupid puffy jacket, carefully inserting a toothpick into my lock with the precision of someone performing microsurgery.
“What the hell?” I gasped.
I’d broken up with him six months ago. No screaming, no dramatic scene…
just a quiet conversation where I laid out the evidence and walked away. I thought we’d parted civilly. Apparently not.
I was fuming.
But I didn’t call the cops. I called Connor.
“He did what?” he barked.
Connor is six-foot-four with tattoos and bad decisions that somehow always work out. He runs a custom auto shop with my brother, rides a motorcycle that sounds like a dragon with indigestion, and looks like he could bench-press a small car.
We dated for about three weeks five years ago before mutually deciding we made better friends than lovers… though the “friend” label occasionally blurred after particularly lonely holidays or wedding receptions.
“He put a toothpick in my lock. Twice,” I repeated, still staring at the paused video of Josh’s face, illuminated by my porch light.
“That’s…
creative. Want me to talk to him?”