The Frustrating Incident of the Locked Door in the Day-Time

There is a hole in my door. More specifically, there is a hole in my door where the doorknob is supposed to be. Want to know why? If your answer was 'no,' too bad. I'm going to tell you anyway.

Either Emily or I (we're still not sure who) accidentally locked our bedroom door before leaving the house this morning. (By the way, we never lock the door because Emily doesn't have a key that will unlock said door. But that is another very long story for another time). So when I came home from classes at one o'clock, Emily had been locked out of our bedroom for about an hour. Naturally, she was quite happy to see me come home, not just because I am the epitome of a good roommate (insert cheesy grin), but also because I had the power to unlock the door. Before attempting, I forced highly encouraged her to show her immense gratitude to me by grovelling at my feet. (See? I'm a great roommate!) Once I dubbed her expression of appreciation sufficient, I whipped out my keys with the intention of dramatically unlocking and opening the door. 

Slowly, I slid the key into the lock and turned it. Nothing. I jiggled the key a few times, rattled the knob, and pounded on the door. Still, nothing. With heavy hearts and lead in our shoes, Emily and I made the trek to the Central Building to explain the situation. The lady at the desk was quite cordial, gave us a spare key, and we gleefully crunched through piles of leaves on the way back home. 

Our experiences back home were synonymous with the viewing of the terrible sequel to a movie that you hated in the first place. Again, the key would not unlock the door. Now would as good a time as any to inform you that my computer and Emily's wallet were locked in the room. I had no way of doing 99% of my homework and she had no way of buying food. And there is essentially no food in this apartment right now. And we were both hungry. So, as you could imagine, we were not exactly happy campers. 

So again, we went to the Central Building. This time, the help of the Big Boss was enlisted. She asked us several question about which doors our key would open (all of them but the bedroom) and called our RA to let her know that the use of the Magical Master Key was necessary. She sent us home with the hope of Sunnie's key working and the promise that somebody from Maintenance would be by shortly to fix our lock. 

Back at Tingey, we found Sunnie and asked her to pretty please come let us in our room. She gladly agreed and went through the same process that we'd gone through twice already. Yes, folks, that's right. Even with the Magical Master Key, the score was still Door: 3 Keys:0. 

After some more whining, we decided to attempt to work on what we could with what we had. Lissa was very gracious and gave us each an Airhead and a granola bar. And thus the waiting began. We knew somebody was coming to fix the door, but the question was when. So I answered hypothetical questions in German about what I'd do if I were in love with my teacher (not kidding), Emily worked on an essay, and we both tried our very hardest to be patient. 

Then came the knock on the door. We shared a look of elation, knowing that it had to be Maintenance Man. I let him in and led him to our stubborn door. He tinkered with it for quite some time and I began to grow nervous. Eventually he came back into the kitchen and informed us that the tools he had were no match for our door and that he'd have to go get different tools. With that, he disappeared and we were, once again, left to wait. 

He came back a bit later with a hammer. Yes, a hammer. Not some fancy schmancy-door-unlocking-devices, but a hammer. He'd called his boss (who was in possession of the real tools) and explained the situation. The boss was using the right tools and couldn't get them to Maintenance Man. So, as logic would assume, the only option was to break the doorknob off of the door. Alrighty then. Maintenance Man delicately hammered at the doorknob for a while before going outside to get "a different hammer." This hammer was not for the faint of heart. He came back in, walking with a purpose, approached our stupid bedroom door, and with one resounding WHACK! that woke up a sleeping Allie and startled Mel out of her room, knocked the door knob clean off of the door. The crowd burst into applause. OK, not really, but we did cheer. 

Maintenance Man (with whom we were feeling quite chummy at this point) let us in our room before cleaning up his mess. We rushed in with the force and fervor of a Black Friday shopper combined with a refugee who hasn't eaten in months and is presented with a buffet of gourmet food. I grabbed my computer and Emily snatched her wallet. "Now we can go shopping!" I shouted. 

Maintenance Man turned to me and said, "Are you serious? I go through all of that to get you in your room and you want to go shopping?" (He wasn't really mad, for the record. Just teasing)

I then explained that we were both hungry and foodless and he understood. He finished dismantling the doorknob and departed, promising, once again, to be back later. 

So in the time since he left, I've been writing this post. And now he's back to finish the job. But, until he's done, my door will look like this:

So that's my epic saga of the day. Now I'm going to go buy food and be productive. Probably. Hope your day was a little less eventful than mine!