Saturday, March 03, 2007

Panic attack

Yeah, I panicked a bit. I was in my apartment, minding my own business when I realized I had left my cell phone in my car. I put on my flip-flops, grabbed my keys, and went to go out the door. The only problem was my door handle wouldn't budge. I checked to make sure it wasn't locked and tried again. No go. I tried everything I could think of, and that blasted door would not budge. Realizing that my phone was in the car, I knew I was stuck. The panic attack started about now. I went around and looked at all of my windows to see if there was some way of climbing out. I have some kind of weird bar things on my bedroom window, and my front windows don't open in a way that would allow me to climb out. I started working on the door knob again. I tried everything I could think of and it didn't budge one bit. I really started panicking. So I did the only thing I could think of. I broke out my tool box and started going to town on the knob. I unscrewed the screws and took the inside part of the knob off. I tried to figure out the mechanics to see if I could turn the bolt mechanism by hand. That was a big no go. The next thing I know, the outside portion of the knob falls off... outside. I realized my mistake immediately. Door knobs are installed when the door is open, and that bolt was not going to budge. I could look through the hole and see out the the great outdoors, but that was about it. If nothing else I guessed I could yell to the next person who walked by, but how embarrassing is that? So without any other options, I just took out my hammer tried to wrench that bolt out of the door. SUCCESS!

I figured I would just go and buy a new door knob. Luckily it didn't look like it got too bent up, so I decided to try and reinstall it. As I was trying to put my door back together, one of my neighbors walked by. She gave me a puzzled look so I explained what I was doing. She laughed and told me I had it lucky. Apparently the same thing happened to her the other day. The only difference was that she had just gotten out of the shower. While still wrapped in her towel, she stepped out of the door for a second to let her dog out. When she went to go back inside, her door got stuck like mine did. I guess I can't complain too much. Besides, I managed to reassemble my door and it works just fine... mostly.

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