Today, I went for a run -- just under 2 1/2 miles, which isn't a lot, but something is better than nothing, is what I always say (or at least it's what I always say after doing any exercise).
Upon returning, ready for a big glass of water and dinner, I tried to open my front door ... and couldn't. Usually the key requires a bit of jiggling to get the door to open. I jiggled the key, a lot. This did not do anything. I was reminded of when I babysat Annah's kids, and we got locked out, and her 3-year-old son happily sang out, "Are we trapped in the haaallway?" like it was the best adventure in the world. I was glad that kids can still be so easily amused in this age of TV and video games, but yes. Yes we were. And yes I was.
I had recently made copies of my keys -- I needed an extra set for my houseguest -- and after doing so, had found out almost immediately that the copy of the door key didn't work. I'd guessed it was a problem with the lock itself, since even with the original you could only unlock the door by jiggling the key just so; and the door wouldn't lock at all from the outside, so when leaving the apartment, I always turned the lock from the inside before closing the door. When I had the houseguest and gave her a spare set of keys, I'd gotten around this problem by locking just the top deadbolt, not the bottom lock in the knob. But today I'd taken the spare keys with me running, and I'd forgotten about this, and I'd locked the door from the inside and now I couldn't get back in. I'd meant to call the super about this whole key situation, but naturally, I hadn't gotten around to it.
I was trapped in the haaallway.
So! What do you do when you're locked out of your apartment, no one else has a spare set of working keys, and you don't have your phone?
First: You ludicrously try to jimmy the door open using not a credit card, since you don't have one on you, but a postcard that you've retrieved from the recycling bin downstairs. (It was a promotional flyer addressed to me, which I had dumped in the bin that afternoon. I don't steal, people.)
After that fails -- because it's not like a piece of paper can open a lock -- then oh, right, neighbors! This is what neighbors are supposed to be for, right? To prep, I went back downstairs where I knew there was a "Need a locksmith?" sticker on the intercom, and scratched the number on the pilfered postcard with my key. Just call me MacGyver. Or, caveman. Either one. Then I went up to my floor and knocked at the door of the apartment next to mine. The woman who answered (yay) had just moved in with her fiance at the beginning of the month. She was kind enough to let me use her phone to call the locksmith, then came downstairs to alert me when they called back on her phone saying they couldn't find me. (I'd been outside the whole time, so who knows what happened.)
I know this is overdramatic, but waiting outside for the locksmith -- no cell phone, no human company, no reading material, nothing to do but stare at the buildings across the way -- was so boring, I wondered if this is what prison was like. And then I envied prisoners their reading material. Yes, I am ridiculous. This is what goes through your head when you're locked out of your apartment with nothing but running clothes and your iPod Shuffle.
As I was waiting for the locksmith, a neighbor of mine arrived -- the only other one I'd met so far -- who, after I'd explained the situation to her, wondered why I hadn't just gotten into my apartment using the fire escape. In fact, this had occurred to me five minutes before. But the locksmith was already on the way, and I figured I was going to have to pay him anyway, so I simply eyed the fire escape and pictured myself climbing up and trying to open one of my windows, while people on the street pointed at me and I called out reassuringly, "It's OK! I live here! I'm locked out! Hang on and I'll show you some ID ... in a second!"
Once the locksmith arrived, I told him what the deal was, and he said, "You know I have to charge you $25 just as a service fee, right?" OK, fine. How much was it to get me into my apartment? Another $115. I stared at him. Was he trying to tell me something? "Do you think I should just try to get in by the fire escape?" The look he gave me was inscrutable. "I can't recommend that. It's dangerous. You could fall."
"Well, how would you get into my apartment, if you did?"
"I would have to drill a hole through the lock."
I considered this. It sounded kind of like a big deal. I can't exactly afford $115 for a locksmith these days. And the guy was like 25 years old. I was supposed to trust him as an authority on fire escapes? "How about this," I said. "What if we go downstairs, and I try to climb up via the fire escape, and you just stand there and tell people I'm not breaking in? And if it doesn't work, we'll do it your way?"
Locksmith: "Uh, I don't ..."
Me: "I'll even pay you extra!"
Locksmith: "What am I going to do, say no?"
[I suppose this is one of those things a woman can get away with, but a man can't. Then again, a man would have gone for the fire escape in the first place, without even calling the locksmith. Because men have poor impulse control, otherwise known as "courage," and women have moxie.]
We went back downstairs, and he was on the phone while I stood under the ladder and looked up at it and tried to figure out how to pull it down. In the movies and on TV, it looks so easy. They just hold up their umbrella and pull the ladder down with their umbrella handle and scamper up. Example A: Richard Gere in "Pretty Woman." And he was in a suit, even. Came out smelling like a rose.
I am here to tell you that there is no way you can pull that ladder down with your umbrella handle so that you can reach it to climb up. I tugged at it with my hands. I pulled wherever it was that could be pulled. That thing was either rusted in place or wasn't supposed to move in the first place. All I got was dirty hands.
Yet I refused to be daunted. I found a big flower pot in the corner of the front courtyard, and first placed it open-side up, underneath the ladder. Tried putting my foot on one edge. OK, that wasn't going to work. Meanwhile, the locksmith had finished his phone call and was regarding me with an open expression of alarm. I had a genius idea and turned the flower pot upside down. This! This was what was going to work. Maybe.
"Um," the locksmith called out, able to stay silent no more, "I don't think you should do this."
Sigh. Fine. He was right. Even my genius idea of the overturned flower pot wasn't filling me with confidence that I could pull this off -- it was still a decent distance to the bottom of the ladder, and from there to the bottom platform.
He came back upstairs with me, pulled out his power drill, aimed it at the lock, then paused and said, "When we get inside, could I see some ID?" A logical enough request, though I stifled a laugh. Then again, this might be a lucrative gig, posing as some just-returned-from-running naïf who can't get back into her apartment, then pays a locksmith $100 to steal thousands. Some drilling and some more drilling, and the lock fell entirely off, and we were in. It took me 15 minutes, during which I was retrieving ID and writing a check, to realize that my bra had been hanging off the back of the couch the whole time.
Now there's a giant hole in the middle of my doorknob (thank goodness the super, at my request, had installed a new deadbolt when I moved in). "I hate to tell you this," the locksmith said, "but this was a really old lock, and it wasn't very good." Why do you hate to tell me this? I'm going to take that and use it as ammunition to try to get reimbursed.
The guy reluctantly accepted a check but wanted only cash, which I suppose I should find sketchy -- especially since the check was made out to someone's name and not the name of the company -- but I was back in my apartment, so I didn't care. I ended up giving him all the money in my wallet, $110, and a check for $30. In retrospect I wonder if I should have tipped him, but how could I, if he'd taken all my cash?
Here are the lessons I learned today: 1) never leave your bra hanging off the back of the couch, lest someone (a locksmith, say) unexpectedly enters your apartment, 2) don't put off calling your super about your lock until you "get around to it," 3) only billionaires and cat burglars have the necessary skills to break into an apartment via fire escape. Good to know.