The Serrato Saga

 Originally Published Dec. 2012

This story takes place in the early ‘90’s when the internet was not yet invented; nor cell phones or even a system to leave voice mail messages on your phone.  

I worked at Medtronic for the Vice President of Worldwide Manufacturing.  Medtronic “brought him up” to Minneapolis after he had spent quite a few years managing its two manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico.  His name was Alfonso and he was originally from Colombia, South America.  He spoke English very well; although he had quite a Spanish accent.  

When he arrived in Minneapolis on a very cold minus 10-degree day, he brought his brand new wife of six weeks with him.  Her name was Aurie (short for Aurora).  She didn’t know one word of English and I soon learned that it was up to me to teach her everything about learning a new language, living in Minnesota, finding a cleaning lady and enrolling her daughter in kindergarten.   Basically, do everything – including helping them find a house!  I enrolled her in ESL classes and she learned very quickly.  However, I would sometimes receive a few calls during the day where I would have to put her on the line with Dayton’s and between the three of us, we’d figure out what kind of a couch or chandelier she wanted.

One day, she called me and asked, “Mary – what does “stuff” mean?”  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant until she said that her daughter, Annabelle, had just come home from school and yelled, “Mom – can I put my stuff in the closet?”  Aurie had no idea whether to answer yes or no to that question.  I assured her that “yes” was a great answer and to never look in that closet.

Another day, she called and said, “Mary – do you know what our husband did today?”  I guess pronouns were not her forte!  I did get a kick out of that statement because in reality, we were both sort of married to Al.  I got the 8-5 timeframe and she got the rest!  And I think we were both happy with that arrangement.

Besides helping them adapt to MN, I took care of their home while they were away on business trips and vacations.  My daughter became their babysitter and we were all like a big family – which was only appropriate since he was considered my husband, too!

The first winter, right before Christmas, Al had to go to Puerto Rico for business.  Aurie had to wait until little Annabelle got out of school for the holiday break before the two of them could fly to Puerto Rico to join Al and the rest of her family for their vacation.  Luckily, they had given my name to their neighbors in case of an emergency.  Because, on Christmas Eve, about four days after Aurie and Annabelle left, one of the neighbors called me and said that a mountain of water was flowing down Al’s driveway.  You see, the water pipes had broken.  It seems that in Audie’s way of thinking, the heat didn’t need to be on since they weren’t going to be there.  So, instead of turning the thermostat down to 60 degrees, she turned it off!  It only took a couple of days for the pipes to freeze and then burst!

During the first summer they were here, I had to “babysit” their home while they were all on vacation for a couple of weeks.  My job was to drive over to their home in Plymouth every-other day and get the mail, sort it, take care of any urgent mail like paying the bills, etc. – yes, I had all sorts of authority in that household. (He was my husband, after all!).  I also had to water the plants, and generally keep an eye out for anything that needed to be done.  

Al had just installed a home security system and he had me come over a couple of days before they left to get “trained in.”  Since Norm and I were not rich enough to warrant an alarm system, I had no idea what to do. So, Al took extra time with me going over the “code” that I should enter onto the pad once I opened the door into their basement from their garage.  He said that I had 20 seconds from opening the door to press in the code and then it would stop beeping.  Oh, okay.  Sounds simple enough.  Enter the garage, walk over to the door, open the door with the key, step over the threshold, enter the code and voila!.... start watering the plants.  No problem.

It was a beautiful sunny day the first afternoon I drove over to their home.  So sunny, in fact, I had to wear my sunglasses!  I stopped at their mailbox and picked up the mail.  They had quite a bit (mostly magazines) and I kept them in my lap while I drove up their driveway.  Parked the car and got out.   I went to the side door of the garage and used the key to open it.  What I didn’t know was that Al had always opened the big garage door with his door opener and parked his car before opening the door into the house.  While I, on the other hand, had to first open the side door and walk across the three-car garage before opening the actual door into the house.  And the side door was the first door that activated the alarm.  Al tended to forget little details like that.

And so, picture the next three-to-four minutes like this:  Mary opens the side door with her key.  The alarm starts to beep. Startled by the beeping, she runs into the garage and immediately bumps into one of the cars – dropping all the mail onto the floor.  It’s dark in the garage and since she still had on sunglasses, the little bit of light coming in from the opened door, didn’t help any.  She says “forget it” to the mail and keeps running toward the door to the house.  Runs into the second parked car, this time dropping the keys in her hand! Gets on her hands and knees to look for the keys.  Finds them!  Finally, she makes it to the door.  Opens the door with the key and locates the keypad.  Presses the appropriate code – 2-2-5-4-4 and the beeping suddenly stops.  

I knew it had taken more than 20 seconds to get to the keypad.  But, novice to security alarms that I was, figured that since I did key in the correct passcode, the alarm decided to accept it.

So, I went back to the garage and gathered up the mail and closed the first side door.  Then, I continued on with my chores – sorting the mail and checking out the rest of the house.  Everything seemed in order.  I found the watering can and proceeded to water the plants.  Okay.  All done. 

I decided to call the receptionist at the office.  Remember – voice mail wasn’t invented yet – nor cell phones.  I figured I better check in and see if Al had called and needed anything from his home.  While on the phone with Sarah, I heard a noise in the backyard.  Someone was trying to open up the back patio doors!  I was in the kitchen.  So I bent down beside the cabinets and said to Sarah:  (whisper:  “Sarah, there’s someone in the back yard!  I’m going to stay on the phone and if you hear me yell, call the police!”  

I peaked around the corner and there standing at the patio door was a Plymouth policeman.  He saw me and motioned me to go around to the front door.  I grabbed my watering can (why?  I don’t know) and opened up the door.  I tried explaining that I worked at Medtronic for the man who lives here and (SAID REAL FAST) he and his family were on vacation and I was checking on things and getting his mail and SEE?...  (HELD UP WATERING CAN) watering his plants.

The policeman was all business and domineering. He had already checked out my car’s license plate and knew who I should be.  He asked for my driver’s license and I had to go back to the kitchen to get it out of my purse.  I guess I turned out to be the right owner of my car because he was very nice after “clearing” me from the possible charge of “breaking and entering” and/or burglary (those watering cans are very expensive, don’t you know).

Anyway, he said that the alarm company had called in that the alarm hadn’t been turned off properly.  I explained what I had gone through and he asked why I didn’t call the company to give them the emergency password.

THE EMERGENCY PASSWORD?  WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT?  Oh? Didn’t you know?  If you find that you missed your 20 seconds, you just call the alarm company and give them the emergency password and they’ll make sure it’s the one assigned to your home and if it is…. You’re okay to go on with your life.  If you don’t call in the emergency password, then the company calls the police.

Well, chalk that up to another item Al forgot to tell me.  The kind policeman said that I only had two more police calls before they would start charging the homeowner for having to come out to the home.

After the policeman left, I called Al in Puerto Rico and told him what happened.  He must have laughed for 10 minutes – he told Aurie and everyone else that was with him what transpired and I could hear them laughing in the background.  I guess the story was a lot funnier in Spanish.

Aurie then told me where she had written down the emergency password and I could still hear the laughter as I hung up.  In the remaining seven or so trips to his home, I found that it still took me more-than-20 seconds to enter the garage, run past the cars, open up the door to the house, and punch in 2-2-5-4-4.  But – I was well trained.  I’d simply called the alarm company and talked to my new best friend, Gloria.  I’d give her the emergency password and we’d talk for a few minutes about our day.

I gave Al a good bawling out when they returned.  After all, isn’t that what wives do when husbands goof up?  On one of my next stories, I plan on telling you about the time I had to find his passport in his house and FedEX it to Chicago so he wouldn’t have to fly all the way back to Minnesota in order to then fly on to Europe.  I worked WITH (not “for”) Al for almost five years before he was transferred to Medtronic’s manufacturing facilities in Europe.  And, as you can see, each day was an adventure!