62. September 22nd, 2010 Picture

I came home on September 22nd, carrying two arm fulls of things, who knows what they were, maybe cloths, dry cleaning, bags, whatever, the arms were full.  I walked up the stairs to my bedroom and threw myself into the door to open it.  Didn’t move.  I tried to turn the knob, but the door wouldn’t budge.  I huffed, I’m sure, hi it’s me, and put all my things on the steps and attempted to open the door again.  The knob didn’t turn and the door sure as hell didn’t open.  Le sigh.  I was locked out.

Now, being locked out may not be that big of a deal most of the time.  Get a spare key from your neighbor, call your roommate, ring the doorbell, etc.  But for me, with my bedroom door locked, it was a travesty.  You see, my bedroom door only locks from inside my room, with a simple little thingy that you turn (I sound SO handy).  I have no key, no way to unlock the door, and my bedroom is on the second floor, so climbing through a window was not an option. 

I quickly pulled out a credit card, and attempted to unlock the door that way, mainly because my brother Eddie can do this and he makes it look so easy.  I got nervous, realizing I was putting something very valuable in the doorframe and decided I should use a card I couldn’t care less about, my work ID.  My reasoning for this was a) I can always get a new one, for free and b) I was over my job.  I ran the card down the side of the door, turning the knob at the same time, hoping to jog it loose, but it didn’t work.  I grabbed a bobby pin and put in through the hole in the door knob, again hoping to hit some internal latch that would magically open the door, but nope.  I yelled up to my roommate Char, asking if this had ever happened to her.  She came down and immediately started laughing, great moral support.  She attempted the card and bobby pin tricks a few more times, while I ran to the basement to look for something that would help.  Not totally sure what I was looking for, but should a hammer or saw be required, I wasn’t above using it.  I had visions or me buying a new door at home depot, or having to pay for the entire frame to be replaced.  I thought about taking the hinges off, but upon further inspection, realized the hinges were on the inside.  Why was it SO hard for me to break into my own bedroom?!  On the other hand, I was really impressed with how sturdy my door was, and it made me feel safer to be in my locked bedroom should a serial killer show up.  Even when I’m NOT thinking about ‘Criminal Minds’ I still totally am.

I grabbed a screw driver and decided that the next best option would be to remove the doorknob and then put it back on once I was in my room.  I started to take it apart, but it was resisting a little bit.  I had all the screws out, but the doorknob wouldn’t budge.  I started turning the knob and hip checking it at the same time, I guess hoping that one way or another, the door would open.  With one great blow of centrifugal force, ie throwing my entire body into the door, it opened!  I didn’t break the door, or the frame, but the knob was shattered into about 5,000 little pieces.  For real:

I am not sure if the knob was broken before, perhaps that is why none of my awesome lock picking skills were for not, but regardless, I was in my room.  The only issue now was that the door couldn’t close on its own and there is a giant hole where my doorknob once was.  Looks like I need to pay a little visit to Home Depot!