In the Pantry

Written by 
Margaret Walls 
LeRoy and Glen's Mom 

May 9, 1985
Kids often get in a predicament but this time it happened to me, a 70-year old grandma. It happened around noon Friday. About 11:30 I started dinner, put bread in the oven, put a pot of broccoli on to cook and turned the burner on high. I was drying a load of clothes in the dryer. Lloyd was out mowing the yard.

While fixing dinner I thought I’d put up a towel rack on the inside of the pantry door to hang my wet, dirty dishtowels on to dry. So I got my hammer and nails, went inside the walk-in pantry, turned on the light, and closed the door to be more solid to nail up the towel rack.

I saw my nails were too short so I decided to go get some longer ones. But, yes, you guessed it - I was locked inside the pantry! I tried different ways to open the door, but couldn’t unlock it. I yelled and pounded, but knew Lloyd could never hear me with the lawn mower running. Finally, about five or ten minutes after twelve o’clock, I heard Lloyd start into the house. I yelled, "Open the door, I’m in here."

Stunned, Lloyd opened the door. What a noise and smell greeted us! The buzzer on the clothes dryer was buzzing, the house full of smoke, the awful smell of burned bread and broccoli, the burner red hot on the stove, and smoke alarm siren going full blast! I felt weak and dizzy. Finally we got things so we could sit down to dinner - just opened a can of soup and had crackers.

Lloyd discovered someone had put the pantry door lock on backwards. It took all afternoon with the doors and windows open to get the smoke and burned broccoli smell out of the house.

Now I can smile, but at the time it wasn’t funny.

12/31/1999