bella does a good amount of house and dog sitting. she has for years. just about anytime she sees someone walking a dog she approaches them, asks if she can pet it, and strikes up a conversation. most of those talks end with the following sentence -- "if you ever need someone to watch your dog and you hire bella's bright dog-sitting business, the future will be bright for you and your pets!"

with a sing-songy pitch like that you know the girl is going to get some calls. if there is a down-side, it is sometimes she gets too many calls. fortunately for bella, she has two brothers that don't strike up conversation with every dog-walking stranger on the street. so when she gets some overlap in her work, she taps her in-house staff, or as others call them, her brothers, to help out.

earlier this year i overheard bella training anthony up on a job. this is such a common happening i tend to pay these moments little mind. but something about this particular breakdown caught my ear, likely the length of the instruction. as the list of things her twelve year old brother had to do grew, my focus drifted from what i was doing to what i was hearing. the house was several miles away (but she would draw him a map). she didn't know the exact wording on the security system because this would be the first stop ever at this new client (but she was confident what to do would be obvious). it was this fuzzy detail about the alarm-system that made me interrupt. bella explained that she originally had the date covered, but the family decided to leave early and now it conflicted with a class she had. i said that was fine and offered to accompany anthony on the first visit.

once it was set that i would be helping anthony, bella said it was good i was going because i would really like this house. it was owned by an older couple who were super meticulous and bella thought i would appreciate the home and its details as she could see me one day, post-children, having a "bunged-up, anal" house like theirs (her words). isn't it lovely how well the people you live with grow to know you?

when the day came, anthony grabbed the instruction sheet and we jumped in the car to head over. for some unusual reason the police had closed the roads that would get us into the subdivision so we had to park about a half-mile out and walk the rest of the way. the home was in one of those planned townhouse communities where everything looked the same, edward scissorhand's style. as we wended our way there i kept asking anthony for details about the street and house number. we finally came upon our destination and stepped through the gate and up the steps.

once at the front door, i readied the key and told anthony to find the security code because he was going to be the one to disarm the system. he pointed at the code on the page and said he was ready. i said when i open the door he had to hustle in there, find the wall panel and enter the code. he gave me a thumbs up. i turned the key and opened the door. as it swung forward, i stepped into a strong and fresh smell of chinese food. dazed, i stopped in the doorway.

my mind did a quick recounting. we were here to walk a dog. the house was supposed to be empty. but that food i was smelling is definitely being cooked and like right now. i looked to the right and saw a dining room. i looked ahead and saw a hallway and a stair case. i looked to the left and saw a living room and an old chinese lady sitting on the floor with an infant. she was staring at me with the same confused look that was surely on my face. anthony bumped into my backside, code at the ready and wondering why i was blocking the way. with surprising ease and speed, the chinese lady stood up, the baby expertly cradled in her left arm, never taking her eyes off me. she swiftly moved to the door.

CHINESE LADY (all in a very thick accent, and a bit aggressive, understandably)
who are you? what are you doing?

TROY
we're here to walk the dog. what are you doing? there isn't supposed to be anyone here?

CHINESE LADY
this my daughter's house. i'm supposed to be here. you are not. why you here?

TROY
uhhm. i was told to come here and walk a dog. (holding up instruction sheet in evidence)

CHINESE LADY
there is no dog here.

TROY
oh. i'm sorry. i'm confused. how long have you been here?

CHINESE LADY
i here all week. my daughter live here.

TROY
uhm. i'm sorry. i thought an older couple lived here.

CHINESE LADY
no. my daughter live here.

somewhere in the midst of this confused conversation that went on longer than is described above the old woman and i at the exact same moment looked at the key in the door. i wondered if maybe the door was originally unlocked and the key didn't really do anything and all that just happened was i pushed an already unlocked door open. to test this notion, i raised my hand to the key and turned it. when i did the deadbolt moved into the locked position. i turned it again and the deadbolt disappeared into its recess. the woman turned to me and her face transformed into a one of great suspicion. with her free hand she raised her index finger and used it to accentuate the end of every word she was about to say, "why do you have key to my daughter house?"

i stood there speechless. after a beat of silence she told me to not move and she was going to get her phone. with that sentence the index finger that had just been accusatorially pointing at me, pointed into the air like she was making a profound declaration. as she turned to leave i looked to anthony. he appeared rather stupified by what was taking place. i stepped to the edge of the porch and saw a street sign a few doors down. i tried reading the letters from where we stood but could not. i grabbed anthony's arm and like a coach sending a player onto the field, pointed at the sign and told him to go see what it said. he bounded down the stairs.

the woman returned with the remarkably quiet baby still in one arm and an iPhone in her free hand. she asked to see the paper i had shown her with the instructions. i offered it again. while she was focused on that, anthony re-appeared on the porch. i looked at him and he subtly shook his head no. shit!

i immediately change tack with the lady and told her it looks like we made a mistake and got on the wrong street. while she took this in, her attention returned to the key. but the key. why do you have a key to my daughter house? this was surely a fair and rightful question, but a question nobody on that porch could answer. i told her i could not explain why this key worked on her daughter's lock but that she should tell her daughter to get her locks changed. with this i had my arm around anthony and we were, in microscopic degrees, backing our way off the porch. seeming to notice she held her phone in the air and yelled STOP! we did. she said she was going to take our picture. as a show that we weren't trying to hide anything i said that was a great idea. she situated her camera and i pulled anthony to my side and we gave bright, exaggerated smiles just like we would for any family photo. i even held my hand up to wave.¹

the woman seemed satisfied to have gotten a picture of our instruction sheet, and of us. i'm sure it didn't hurt that this father-son team couldn't have come across as too threatening. as soon as we were on the other side of the gate, without my needing to ask, anthony told me we were on the wrong street. he said we needed to be on peyton circle and this was peyton court. we looked at the house one more time and while we did so, we heard a dog bark twice. without taking our eyes off the house i asked anthony if he and he heard the woman say that there was no dog there. he said she did say that. i then asked him if he just heard a dog bark in the house. he said he did. twice. here we looked at one another but said no more. i closed the gate, we turned and walked away.

we found peyton circle. we found the house. the key worked. anthony handled the alarm just fine. we let the dog out and while it did its business, we dissected what just happened. that night we for sure regaled the family dinner table with our unusual adventure.

you would think that that would surely be the end of that story but it isn't. three days later bella locked herself out of the house, the peyton circle right house. she called home and asked what to do as the family wasn't expected home for a few more days and the dog was in there. i told her to sit tight and i would bring anthony over. i was bringing anthony for two reasons. first was because he and i were going to go to the chinese-family house and see if we could talk them into letting us borrow their keys so we could get into this other family home. i knew this was ill-advised but we were in a bit of a pinch. ill-fated as this route was i felt it would be more innocuous if the two guys who were on the original photo returned, it might lend some credibility to the ask. the chinese family was not home, thankfully i'm sure. this led to the second reason i brought anthony. in our family he is better at lock-picking than anyone else. so anthony tried the various locks for about twenty minutes. he reported back that his tools were too primitive for this job. the downside is we didn't get in the house. the upside was i knew what to get him for his birthday.

bella asked what we could do now. i explained that next she would have to call a lock-smith but that the problem there was she didn't have any proof that she lived at this house so she might have problems persuading them to let her in. but this was the hail mary that might save her from calling the home-owners. so bella looked up a service and made the call. anthony and i left as i said it might look more suspicious if we were lurking about. bella called me an hour later to let me know she made it into the house. i was more than a little shocked and asked how she convinced the guy to do it without any proof that she lived there. she said he never asked but that she explained she was house-sitting. and as an aside she added that the guy asked her if she would like to get dinner sometime. oh. so that's how you get a fella to let you in someone's house. i asked bella if the dinner invite came before or after the door was open. she said she couldn't recall as there was quite a bit of conversation happening between them. i think that hash falls squarely in the fliration-based disaster-avoidance column.

and that is how the great troy and anfer subsitute dog-walking adventure ended. if you are wondering, we never heard more from the chinese family and anthony did score a next-level set of lock-picking tools for his birthday.

¹ as a truly final note, i cannot tell you how much money i would pay to have a framed copy of the picture that chinese lady took of anthony and i that day on that porch. the dollar amount would stagger everyone, well everyone except for my wife who would probably say, "he would have gone higher." and she probably would be right.