Yesterday was laundry day, like, super for reals. I specifically went to the bank and withdrew 20 bucks which I then exchanged for quarters. I got home at 6:18 and walked into my room at 6:20. (Into my room is key.) Then, when I tried to walk out of my room, I couldn't! The door was stuck. I kept turning the handle but it wouldn't catch the latch. I'd noticed this happen before but with some gentle nudging I'd always been able to get it to catch. Not this time. I tried a few more times before pounding on my bedroom wall and yelling my roommate's name. No one answered. So I tried to call his phone, just in case he couldn't hear my pounding for some reason. (?) Turns out the number I have for him, which I thought was his cell phone, is actually the land line in our apartment, so I sat on my bed hearing the phone ring in the living room. So I went back to trying to jiggle the handle a few more times. I then called my friend and neighbor, Isaac. That's how I know what time this happened. I was thinking that maybe he could scale the brick wall of the church courtyard that my window overlooks, catch my keys, which I'd throw out the window, let himself into my apartment and try to jimmy the latch from the outside. Unfortunately, he was still at work. And he's not really one for scaling walls, in the rain, in the dark, on God's holy ground. I then took the bolts out of the hinges on the door and tried just pulling it out from the frame. My door opens into my room, that's why I couldn't just kick it in. That, and the fact that I would probably splinter it before it came free. But the hinges had been painted over at some point and weren't moving. Even after repeated bangs with my hammer, which I'm so glad I bought and keep in my room. My available laundry time was running out.
But the bathroom window was open! My window is on the inside corner of the building and our bathroom window is on the opposite corner. So when you look out my window, there's the bathroom.
The bathroom window consists of two sliding panels and when both are pushed down the opening is about 4 feet high by 2 1/2 feet wide. "Maybe," I thought, "I can climb outside my window, onto the bathroom ledge, through the bathroom window and then jimmy the latch myself from the outside." Did I mention I live on the 3rd floor? I was still on the phone with Isaac and, upon hearing my brilliant idea, he promptly tried to talk me out of it. I hung up quickly, promising to call back from the living room. I put my keys in my pocket, just in case, then debated whether or not to take my phone. Say I'm scaling my building and my phone falls out of my pocket to the cement below. It would definitely break and I'd be super pissed. But say I'm scaling my building and I fall to the cement below but can't call an ambulance because I left my phone in my room. I left the phone. So I held onto the molding around my window, put one foot onto the ledge of the bathroom and one on my ledge, transferred over to just the bathroom ledge, reached in through the window to grab whatever I could and tried to lift my legs through, one at a time. Here's what I was trying to get through, viewed from the inside.
That's not a lot of room, plus I'm pretty tall, which in some ways made it easier but in others harder. The point is, I got through, but not before knocking over my roommate's razor (which I was momentarily worried about until I remembered that I could, at any moment, fall to my death).
Now that I was out I figured it would be a simple matter of sliding a knife through the door jamb to press the latch open--a skill that I mastered as a child when my dad would lock the TV room door in the hopeless attempt to stop my brother and me from ruining our minds. It wasn't so easy. The fucking molding around the door made it so that I had to slide the knife it at this weird angle and I couldn't even find the goddamn latch. I tried using a small steak knife, a butcher knife, a spatula (I was running out of options), a paint blade and finally a giant screwdriver. None of them worked. I did start to do a pretty good job of wrecking the door frame. After many a failed attempt, I finally went downstairs to find my super, only to be told that he was out and wouldn't be back until 1AM. What the hell was I going to do? Yes, technically I could get in and out of my room through the window but not only is that not the safest way but it's not very practical. I need to get up at 4:30 the next morning and work straight until 8PM. And I still needed to do laundry. I was not about to start tossing my clothes through the bathroom window. I called Isaac again (from the landline, remember I wisely left my cell phone in my bedroom) to let him know I wasn't sprawled out on the concrete. He suggested I go to sleep on the living room couch and wait for the super to get home. But my stubborn side said, no, I am going to fucking fix this. So I went back at that latch with renewed vigor/anger. But it just wasn't working...from this side. Back into the bathroom! I threw the giant screwdriver into my room and once again traversed the heights. Once back in my room I jammed that screwdriver in the door frame and jiggled, wiggled, banged and pulled against it, totally tearing the wood until the door popped open. Success! As I pulled the door open more it finally started falling off its hinges, which I had neglected to put back in.
I started playing with the latch and found that I couldn't keep it in. I thought about taping it down but worried that one day, without my noticing, the tape would come off and I would get trapped again. So I unscrewed the plating on the latch, turned it upside down, and screwed it back in. Now the hole for the latch was too low so the plate kept it in.
So I got free but in the process really fucked up the doorknob and frame. If you're wondering why I didn't just take the doorknob off, I couldn't, it was nailed in. If you look closely, this is what you'd see.
But I'm planning that not many people will, particularly my roommates and certainly not my super, because I'm not going to tell them. My super kind of sucks and takes forever to fix anything so I'm just going to live with this. The door still closes and stays closed from friction so I'm fine.
Then I finally, finally, went downstairs to do my laundry only to discover that the basement was partly flooded and the machines were broken!
So instead I bought some brownie mix, actually made the brownies, and treated myself to a big bowl of brownies and ice cream, which I promised myself I could have a few weeks ago. And it totally made me sick. And I may or may not be wearing dancer briefs as underwear today, so I really hope I don't have to go to the hospital.
And here are some more pictures I discovered in my phone.
Me being pensive. Surprise. I have no idea when, where or why I took this picture. Or why I didn't delete it; I don't look very good.
My boss' dog. Her name is Lola and I love her.
Hershey Kiss wrappers from a whole bunch that I ate one day. I think I took this because my coworker said I could have as many of her chocolates as I wanted and I wanted to show her what a dangerous statement that was.
