Wanda's World

Not long ago my husband got locked in the basement. I must admit, when he began knocking on the door and asking to be let out, it was tempting to pretend that I wasn't home. But I knew if I tried to tiptoe across the living room floor he would hear me and know that I was up there. So I had to let him out.

This used to happen quite often to my son during the time he was living at home and had a bedroom downstairs. The door locks quite easily because all you have to do is push in the button on the doorknob.

It's actually our dog Lucy who is the culprit when it comes to locking family members downstairs. Perhaps if I stopped feeding her lite dog food and went back to something with actual flavor to it she will stop locking us in the basement.

She does it quite inadvertently, by pushing the door open with her nose until it hits the wall and accidently pushes the little button in. Then the next victim to go downstairs and shut the door behind him, locks himself in.

I still believe Lucy sits upstairs and shares a good chuckle with the cats at the expense of whichever human is locked in the basement, beating on the door.

Hubby and Junior think it is a bad thing to be locked in the basement. Personally, I think I could just live down there. It's as close to a real vacation as I could get without leaving town.

There's a bed, a TV, radio, couch, rocking chair, fireplace, computer, and all my books. If I was locked in long enough I could actually read those 187 books I ordered last year from my numerous book clubs. And I could relax in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace – how peaceful.

There's a refrigerator with drinks and a microwave with plenty of packages of popcorn.

Being locked in the basement could even force me into that diet I'm always talking about. There's an exercycle and a treadmill. Those, along with my water and popcorn diet, should be an excellent weight loss program, not to mention the tremendous amount of fiber I'd be consuming.

There's a bathroom, which considering my possible high fiber diet, is probably a good thing.

I don't have any makeup or a curling iron down there, but if I'm all alone, who cares! There's no one to frighten or impress. Of course if I'm down there to long, my hair could return to it's "natural" shade of gray which could lead to scaring myself to death when I walk past the one and only mirror.

I could write a book since I'd be all alone with plenty of time to concentrate and think. Then I'd become famous as that gray-haired, skinny, hermit woman without makeup who lived in her basement all alone for a year and emerged with the manuscript for the Great American Novel. They say the great writers always suffered.

So, Lucy, next time I'm downstairs, go ahead and shut the door. Just tell everyone I'm on vacation.

Oh, and look for my new book on the best seller list about a year from now. I'll be that very thin, plain Jane, gray-haired lady being interviewed on "Oprah!"