Haunting Doors

I'm at my parents' house and I'm trying to lock the exterior doors and I can't seem to successfully lock them. I feel unsafe. The doors and locks are flimsy. It is dark and no one is home. A car drives up the long driveway without it's headlights on, and I'm scrambling to get all the doors locked before the car reaches the house. It doesn't happen.

I've had that same reoccurring dream a couple of times a year for the past 20 years or so. I tend to dream about it right after a visit with my parents. I have issues with their doors. Growing up, the exterior door locks barely worked. Mom would put a chair in front of each door with the chair back propped under the door knob in hopes that it would be harder for an intruder to shove the door open. That's how it was. And pretty much still is.

Not one interior door would lock either. Mom and Dad would walk in my bedroom and bathroom without knocking. No privacy at all. Thank god I didn't discover masturbation until I left home. But I should have put a chair in front of my bedroom door anyway.

The interior doors were hollow as well. Worse yet, my bedroom wasn't too far from my parents' bedroom. A couple of times I heard their bed squeaking in the middle of the night, hoping they weren't doing what I thought they were doing, and praying they would quit very soon. When I heard that god-awful sound, I also made a strong agreement with myself, that if I ever have kids, they would have their bedrooms at the other end of the house. This may be the cause of me getting solid wood doors for my rental, and for hating hollow wood doors with a passion.