I got a fairly good nights sleep, considering I was in a strange bed, in a strange house.

So, this is my first morning pet sitting in this beautiful house, with sweeping views of the Kona Coast, and I want to get it right. The couple had a family emergency, and I feel good about my role in ensuring that their home and their three sweet kitties will be clean, well-fed and unharmed on their return.

But it’s only 4 a.m., and it’s still pitch black outside. And for reasons evading me this morning, I chose the spare room to sleep in with a mattress on tatami mats on the floor. I scratch my head at this good idea as I ponder how I will get my ‘not-as-agile-as-it-used-to-be’ body out of bed.

After an interesting maneuver that involved, rolling, spiralling, and contortionism, I am finally upright. I hope I remember how to do that tomorrow morning. At least the bed is comfortable.

I slowly make my way downstairs to the kitchen to make some coffee.

A faint, “meow” is followed by a light scratching at the back door. Through the large glass door, backlit by an overhead light, I see two round eyes in a long-haired, black and white face looking pleadingly at me. I guess my antics have woken the outdoor feline occupants of the house. It’s never to early for breakfast when you’re a cat.

“Hi kitty, kitty,” I greet him, and am rewarded with another “meow”. “Would you like some breakfast? Ok, I’m coming.” Coffee is highly overrated anyway – I try to tell myself.

As I reach for the doorknob, I notice a yellow, sticky note taped above it.

Don’t lock yourself out, it says, followed by two crude diagrams of the locked and the unlocked position of the knob.

No problem, I’ll just leave the door open while I feed them, I think to myself. Since there are no other notes with instructions pasted around the house, it should have occurred to me that possibly I wouldn’t be the first person to lock myself out, and I should pay more attention.

What I don’t realize is that the door will open from the inside regardless of the position of the lock, but from the outside I need to be aware – in my coffee deprived state, I’m prone to think I know what I’m doing, when I don’t.

So not giving the doorknob the attention it deserves, I grab the cat food, open the door, and continue to baby talk to the kitties, two of whom are rubbing themselves around my legs.

“Oh, don’t go inside sweetie,” I quickly reach behind me and shut the door. Clunk!

I carefully dole the food out per the instructions I was given, and feel quite proud of myself that I have gotten my first assignment right. I look down at the purring cats contentedly eating and reach for the door to go inside– not so fast honey, you just locked yourself out.

I look longingly through the glass at the warmly lit kitchen holding my future cup of coffee, and wonder how I will be reunited with it. Then I turn around, and look out at the yard beyond the overhead light, still pitch black, and I notice for the first time it is lightly raining. I look down at myself – pajamas and barefoot.

Now I do what any sane person in my situation would do, I laugh out loud. What the hell am I going to do? I notice a pair of Cinderella-size slippers sitting out here, but they won’t fit over my big toe.

It only takes me a minute to remember we chose a place for a hide a key for just such an event. But that is around the other side of the large house, nearer to the front door. Nothing for it but to take off bravely into the dark, through the grass, in the rain, barefoot, and pajamas, and pray there are no centipedes.

As I let myself in the front door, I look at the small round ring camera sitting on the credenza pointing at the door and resist the urge to smile and wave – in case the owners are watching, with jaws dropped, from somewhere around the world. But maybe they won’t find it amusing that their new housesitter, boasting as having common sense on her website, has already locked herself out, first thing in the morning of day one.

www.tlchousepetsittingkona.com