The following events take place on the afternoon of August 29th 2012, only twenty days after my arrival in the United States of America.

In that warm and sunny early fall afternoon my host parents were out to take my host brother to college. I stayed with my neighbors, two houses away from mine, but every once in a while I had to go back and check if the cats were ok.

One of those cat checking times was right after my soccer practice in the morning. I got home thirsty, wanting to swallow a whole gallon of water. Before I ran to get a glass, I spotted some fruits in the kitchen island. There were bright yellow bananas, shiny orange clementines and a box full of tempting strawberries. They smelled sweet, so ripe that I couldn’t resist. I decided to make myself a banana and strawberry smoothie, oblivious to how a harmless snack would turn itself into a memorable tragedy.

I diced the strawberries, sliced the bananas, added milk and mixed everything on the blender, before I realized the smoothie was missing some ice. I grabbed the blender by its handle and innocently made my way through the kitchen to the refrigerator. Once there, I pressed the ice cube lever on the refrigerator, and then the unimaginable happened. The bottom of the blender fell off, spilling all of its contents on the floor. Actually, not only on the floor, but also on and under the refrigerator, on the kitchen island, on the stools, on the oven, on the cabinets... Even Snowbell, the elder cat, would have gotten “smoothied” if she wasn’t fast enough. Basically everything within three yards distance from ground zero got covered in a thick nasty pink-colored layer.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the universe had traced an interesting sequel of events for me in that fatidic afternoon. After at least one hour of hard work I managed to clean all the mess and went outside to put the garbage out. I thought it would be a smart idea to go out by the garage door, but I was wrong. The moment I closed the door behind me I heard a distinct click from the lock and realized there was no way back inside the house. The only option was to open the garage door to the outside. Not a bad option, except for the fact that I didn’t know how to do that. I was stuck in the garage, with mom’s car staring at me and holding a garbage bag exhaling an awful smell - by that point the smell of the ripe bananas mixed with the strawberries wasn’t anywhere near as good as before. My only hope was to find out how to open the challenging garage door. But don’t worry: if you are reading this is because I somehow managed to escape the trap I set to myself.
After at least twenty minutes of frustrated attempts, on the verge of giving up, I finally managed to get the door open. I had to pull the tricky steel wire that kept it locked, almost losing two of my fingers on the process, but in the end I was free. However, what was the point of being outside if all I wanted was to be inside in the first place? I then walked proudly to the front door thinking that my probation was over once and for all, only to realize that the front door was locked and I had no keys on me.

Surprisingly quickly, in a surge of criminal thinking, I started to check around the house to find an unlocked door. First I checked the door on the deck: locked. Second, the walk-out basement door: also locked. I then went to the next level: windows. The only unlocked one was in a hard access point, with a screen on it. Somehow I managed to climb on a step on the clapboards of the wall, almost falling on the bushes, take the screen off, open the window and get in through it.

The next step was simple. I checked around the house to see if everything was fine with the cats, if the kitchen was clean, and put the screen back on and locked the window. Then I left to my neighbor’s house. Nothing else could go wrong that day.

My neighbor said she would leave the back door open for me, since nobody was home. I made my way through her garden to the door, and all of a sudden her dog, Pepper, came out from nowhere and started to chase me, barking at me as if I was a burglar. She is a small dog, so I dodged her easily and got to the door. But since nothing could be so easy on that day, the back door was - guess what? - locked.

By that time I was already an expert on breaking in houses, so I justed reached for the lock through an opening in the screen made for the dog and lifted, opening it. I had survived the day and was finally inside!

That’s the story of how in only one day, before even completing a month in my new home, I almost destroyed my kitchen and broke in two houses. Coincidently, that night I had a banana and strawberry smoothie at my neighbor’s, but since that tragicomic afternoon I never got anywhere near that dangerous tricky blender of mine.