Shut Doors

I was thinking about this today, as we finally had a decently warm day here in Oregon.

A few years ago I had a sprinkler system installed in my yard. Spend money to save money, right? The real reason was that so much water was wasted when I tried to water the lawn and flower beds by running on the sidewalk or hitting the house or overspraying into the trees, I concluded that for the sake of the earth, it would be much better to have concentrated sprinklers that I could time and control in order to do my part in maintaining the balance between a decent yard and a healthy planet.

When the man who installed the system came by to show me how to program it and to do a final run-through before I needed to use it, I met him at the garage. The control box is in the garage, so I went over to open the overhead door, but he skirted around the side.

Now there is a door on the side of the garage, but in the 20 years I've lived in this house, it has never been opened.  I think, once, a long time ago, I tried it and it didn't open.  But I could just be imagining it. Imagine my surprise when the yard guy opened it. He was trying to explain the sprinkler to me and I was fixated on the door.

"Now, here's where you program the various zones."
"How did you open that door?"
"It's always been open. Now, see this button?"
"No, it hasn't always been open. Did you unnail it or something?"
"It wasn't nailed. Okay, the manual is right here and...."
"It was supposed to be nailed shut. I've never been able to open it."
"I've been using it since I started to put in the system. So, see how the different zones have different timers?"
"You just opened it?"
"Yeah. What's the big deal with the door?"
"I've lived here for years and never knew the door could open."
"Well, it does.""

All this time, I believed that the side door was nailed shut when it wasn't. I wonder how many other doors in my life I believe are nailed shut when, in fact, they are just waiting for me to try them.