… Totally locked myself out of my apartment today. And this wasn’t like, “Hey, I just forgot my keys!” locked out. Oh noooooo… this was, “$*#$#%@%*$(@)!@!, I just locked myself out and forgot my wallet, keys, and cellphone. And my car is locked, not expecting anyone ever, and everyone in my complex is asleep because it’s 6:30 AM.” locked out.
Luckily, I didn’t have to work today. Fantastic.
So, I went ahead and accomplished what I came outside to do in the first place: Taking the garbage around. This served me two-fold: If anyone happened upon me I would look slightly less like a slob, and, secondly, it gave me time to think about my predicament.
I didn’t have many tools available to me… None, in fact. Well, I had a box cutter from work that I threw out while I was still raging about locking myself out, but by the time I thought about it I had already covered it up in nastiness. Nothing left to do now except scour the ground in search of something to “card” my door with.
Item 1: flattened beer can
One of the characteristics of living in a “college” habitat is the party lifestyle, which inevitably leads to alcohol containers strewn flippantly around the ground. And I found one very flattened can that I thought I might be able to use, but it was too thick. So I tried ripping the end off, but the middle of the can wasn’t sturdy enough. Time for plan B.
Item 2: Byer’s and Harvey for rent sign Hey, by this time I was getting a bit desperate. Not finding anything else useful in my parking lot, I extended my search to the road and came upon a “For Rent” sign that I thought I might be able to get away with. But, after a careful survey of the area, and being mindful of how bored the campus police get… I chose to move on.
Item 3: Twenty ounce water bottle
It was sticky. It was disgusting. And I was just a little embarassed about picking it up out of someone’s yard, but I didn’t think they would mind. However, it was plastic and, when flattened, was close enough to the required stiffness to “card” my door. I was delighted. I trekked back to my place, cradling this glorious piece of rubbish, and cautiously, but firmly, applied it rougishly to the latch of my humble portal. I admit, there was a moment of panic when I thought it wasn’t going to be firm enough, but I closed my eyes and did the little Thomas freak out thing and pushed… which resulted in a satisfying “click” and the fogging of my glasses as it was unbelievably warm in my apartment when I made it in.
Groovy eh? OH! Here’s a pic:
My hand will never be clean again.
:: Related Extras ::
Filed under: Life | 1 Comment
I really, really should have been there.