"When properly adjusted, the door will automatically reverse if it senses an obstruction during the closing cycle. This system will also stop the door if it hits an obstacle when opening"

Instruction manual

Stanley automatic garage door opener

Model Number UB400CO

Nap.

I needed a nap.

Nap, nap, nap.

Even before my feet hit the bedroom floor in the morning, I knew I needed only one thing.

A nap.

So my workday spread ahead like spilled black paint.

I love my job. Journalism is the only profession where both dedication to the advancement of our society and a severely disturbed personality are keys to prosperity.

But you also need many naps.

It was an easy day at work. The headlines seemed to type themselves. Premier Harris had managed to again mystify the rationally-minded, the federal Conservatives continued to yank the lever of the toilet they were in and Alliance leadership candidate Tom Long went to great lengths explaining why he had more people voting for him in the Gaspe Peninsula than there were people living in the Gaspe Peninsula.

Despite all the fun, I still needed a nap.

Nap, nap, nap.

Type, type, type.

Nap, nap, nap.

And finally, after several hours of eye-glazed defence of truth in the media, I was finished. I had done just enough to leave the office without feeling too guilty about showing up on pay day. (That's why MPs are paid by direct deposit.)

I staggered to the parking lot, cursed the birds in the tree above my car and drove home watching the gas gauge sap away my son's university education.

But I really didn't care. I was headed for a nap.

There was just one hurdle left. I knew that if I came home early, Darlene next door would ask me to pick up my son and her children at school. Today was her busy day, and she often found it difficult to get away. Worse yet, Darlene is not the kind of woman to whom one can say "No". Darlene is very pretty, blonde, and impossible to refuse.

I saw a guy do that once. He was a nice guy. I was sorry to see him go.

She frightens me more than my wife.

My only hope was to zip up my driveway, slip in the garage and close it without her notice. This was possible. I'd done it many, many times before.

You can tell that because I'm still here

As soon as I hit my driveway, I pressed the button on the remote control of my Stanley automatic garage door opener, model number UB400CO. My garage door opener is one of my proudest possessions. It's almost magical. Every time I use it, I feel like Batman racing into the Bat Cave after a night of crime-fighting. The door slides up, and I'm home, protected and safe.

My car reached the door just as the maw of the garage appeared. My car slid stealthily inside and even before I stopped, I again pushed the remote to close the door from Darlene's inspection.

Things happened quickly at this point.

The garage door was continuing it's descent as I left the car. I moved behind the vehicle and, forcing my somewhat corpulent frame against the trunk, attempted to slide between the closing garage door and my Mercury Mystique. Of course, there was only one thing on my mind.

A nap.

The Stanley automatic garage door opener, model UB400CO, is a technological wonder. It has more failsafe systems than a space shuttle. A beam of light crosses the floor at the garage entrance. If that beam is broken, it sends the door in reverse as it closes. And if the door meets any kind of opposition on its ascent, it will stop, depending on the weight setting you specify on the main drive. I figured I had a pretty heavy door so I had set this level rather high.

This was a mistake.

As I squeezed between the descending door and my car, my pontoon feet somehow managed to break that beam of light, immediately sending the garage door back up. As it rose, the door latch fastened itself on my belt at the back of my pants. Of course, as it rose, so did my pants - with me in them.

Because I had set the garage door opener, model UB400C0, to lift a rather hefty load, it managed to raise me to tiptoes before it stopped.

I had achieved a new summit in the battle between man and technology.

I was the first human being to receive a wedgie from a garage door.

I hung precariously behind the car like a marionette, flapping my arms desperately behind, trying to free my belt from the door. But the door was open about three feet from the ground and applying a great deal of pressure on my pants and their contents. For some reason I thought of Pinnochio, and how my nose would probably be the only body part that would ever grow longer again.

There was some degree of pain involved.

I didn't care about my nap anymore.

The more I struggled, the more God's plan for the continuation of my genetic strain were pancaked.

Suddenly I had an epiphany, if such a holy event can happen while dangling from a garage door.

My belt.

Of course. Just unloose my belt.

I struggled with the buckle, the pressure being intense, but suddenly it was free.

And my pants dropped to my ankles.

And for some reason, I knew now was the time Darlene would look out from her window across to my garage, and in that three-foot space between door and driveway, see a pair of alabaster white legs, ankles draped with pants, behind a Mercury Mystique.

To make matters worse, in order to extricate myself from between car and garage door, I was forced to gyrate somewhat obscenely against the vehicle.

And I've never really liked that car that much.

When I was free, I yanked up my pants, rushed into the house, collapsed on the couch.

I had just closed my eyes when my son arrived home from school yelling "Hi Dad, lets play video games".

There is no moral to this story. No lesson.

It's just my life.