I love my new home, which was built in 1979 and still has mementos, shall we say, of those early days.
No sense getting rid of something if it works, right? I learned the hard way just how well some of those pieces have held up over the years. Take the doorknobs, for example. Or let me say, take the doorknobs, please.
Last night I had one of those fluke home accidents that are difficult to reconstruct and embarrassing to explain. So rather than try to paint a detailed picture for you, suffice to say, some tissue caught on fire, I tossed it in the toilet, had the presence of mind to turn the fan on, and closed the door so the smoke detectors wouldn’t go off. It should be noted I was certain the fire was doused at that point.
Later, when I was sure the smoke was cleared, I returned to the bathroom and — the door was locked. I did everything I knew to do with a locked bathroom door, including breaking a hanger so I could use the hook at the top to pop out the lock, sliding a credit card past the latch and looking at the other locks for clues.
Oh yes, checking the door sills for a magic key. Those, no doubt, were lost long ago.
This morning, promptly at store opening, I entered Lowe’s and headed to their key counter, hoping they had a magic key. No such luck. Use a hanger, the guy told me, or a credit card.
My neighbors helped me with a tool or two, but still, nothing worked. I was forced to call my landlord, who got a good laugh out the situation. She’d done it herself, she said, but she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten the door open again.
A picture is worth a thousand words…here’s before and after…what you can’t see in this picture is how we tried to take the door off the hinges, then realized we’d have to pull it straight out and try not to tear out the latch. We abandoned that idea.
Eventually Catherine, my landlord, somehow got the door open with a credit card and a screwdriver. We’d tried that before, to no avail, but this time she got it to work.,
It took an hour, and that was the time spent on it after she arrived. The cats were confused, but friendly (they like Catherine).
Last summer she debated about changing the door knobs. Now I helped make that decision for her.
But I can get into my bathroom again.
Image of Cat © geosap — Fotolia/AdobeStock
My World With Words 
Wait, wait, wait! Some tissue caught on fire? Smoking in the girls’ room again, Belinda? 😀
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Okay, okay, this does need further explanation. I have no heat in the house, so I was lighting candles to generate a little warmth. I dumped the used matches in the sink and poured some water over them, but apparently missed one, which lit up as I was picking them up. I dropped in on a roll of toilet paper sitting on the counter, which promptly caught on fire. I was able to toss it in the toilet safely…and the rest is history.
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Goodness, Belinda. But I do the same as you–run water of the matchstick–the entire thing. This is scary. Glad it didn’t burn more behind locked doors.
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Yes, I thought about that later. Initially, thankfully, I was more concerned about putting the fire out than whether or not the smoke detector would go off, so that was under control.
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Your posts are always entertaining and informative to read. and you always seem to come up with a good line that makes me laugh… “The cats were confused, but friendly” – provided a nice chuckle.
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The door knob swap-out decision is indeed made at this point. That’s a lock. (couldn’t resist) I too liked your line “The cats were confused, but friendly.” Laughed out loud. I have a mental picture now of them watching all of this play out.
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I was proud of them…although I like it somewhat when they’re scared of strangers. Less likely they’ll be near any doors accidentally left wide open! My biggest fear in life is my cats running outside…I fear I’d lose them then for sure.
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