Who Holds the Key?

For those of you who don't know, since I've come down here, I haven't had a doorknob on the outside of my bedroom door. It has always just been a little stump thing that you twist to get into the room. It has never really given me trouble, and hey, it makes me different, so we have always been on good terms. Well, I think we had our first fight the other day, which has caused a major rift in our relationship. In fact, it's more than a "major rift." I think we have broken up forever.

So, Wednesdays are always terrible days at school, but for some reason, I only had 4 kiddos show up, and it was a GREAT day. We had a lot of fun, actually. I was shocked at how smoothly a Wednesday could go; or so I thought. The afternoon came and went, and I found myself alone in the casa. A friend came by to see if he could borrow my keys to the school for an hour, so I knew he would be back shortly to drop them back off to me. Well, I was in my room working at my computer when the doorbell rang, so I had to finish typing rather quickly. Well, this guy is really persistent with ringing the doorbell, so I threw open my door and ran out to the gate to get the keys from him.

As I'm coming back in the house, I don't think anything of the fact that my door naturally closes on its own. Well, I go to turn the stump of a knob only to find that the door is locked. When I opened the door, it hit my wall and the lock got punched in, leaving me OUTSIDE my room when I wanted to be INSIDE. Hmmm... Bit of a dilemma, no? So, here I stand, alone, staring at my door in complete shock, completely confused about what I should do, and slowly realizing that my screwdrivers and/or hammer are locked in my room..... Along with everything else.

At first, I don't get too panicky because I think, "It's just a pop lock, so I need to find something small enough to stick in there and pop it open." No big deal, right? WRONG! NOTHING will fit. I pace back and forth through the house, alone because my roommates are out, not knowing what to do. I try sticking the end of a spoon in there, but it's too big. I stick a toothpick in there, but it breaks on me. I try shoving a pen in there, but it splits open and spills ink everywhere. So, here I am, ink all over my hands, staring at my door in shock. I try to clean myself up from the pen, and I go back to my door to do the only logical thing at this point. I threw myself at the door, shoulder first. Let me just tell you, these are good, SOLID, wooden doors. After about the fourth or fifth time of throwing myeslf into the "solid-as-concrete-and-unmoving-no-matter-how-much-weight-I-throw-into-it" door, I decide to use my foot. Again, the door is unmoving.

Now, if I wasn't in such a bad mood about my door and lack of doorknob (which means, lack of key also), I would have been able to think, "Wow, this is a great door... No one will be getting through it to take my stuff..." Unfortunately, that thought didn't cross my mind. Instead, a lot of other things crossed my mind, but I won't share those details with you. I tried to take a different approach by going outside to my windows. Unfortunately, there are metal coverings over the windows so that nothing can get through them. At this point, I am completely beside myself. I had already missed my evening phone call from Matt, and I just dumped myself over the end of my couch in fervent prayer.

I finally decided (after a good hour and a half of trying to unlock the door) that I was just going to have to wait for my roomies to get home. I turned on the television, and I decided to find something to watch for a little bit. During this time it started raining, and about 10 minutes later, the power went out. I'm so glad I had my flashlight..... LOCKED SAFELY IN MY ROOM. The hits just kept on coming. Luckily, the power came back on, and a few minutes later, my roomies made it home. I met them outside the door and almost burst into tears. They asked me what was up and all I could say, with unfallen tears glistening in my eyes, was, "I'm locked out of my room."

For Justin, that was like a challenge. Over the course of the next half hour, we tried sawing off the little stump, using a screwdriver (but we didn't have a flathead), shouldering the door in, credit cards, and finally the hammer. Oh the hammer...... First, we knocked off the stump on the outside. Next, we pounded the doorknob through the door so that I had a hole where it used to be. Unfortunately, the lock was still stuck. Finally, with the help of a small wire cutter, Justin managed to pull it out and open the door. I had been locked out of my room for 2 1/2 hours.

Needless to say, my relationship with my stump of a doorknob has been shattered along with the door handle itself. There was only one that held the key to opening it.... And it was none other than a hammer.