Susan McGyver

OK, y'all, now this is funny.  It could have been scary as all get out, but I laughed about it.  Yesterday, Willy and I went to the home improvement stores to purchase new doorknobs for all the inside doors that he and my cute handyman friend are changing out for me.  To make sure that we got the same kind, Willy took the doorknobs off of the main bathroom door (one of the first they fixed for me), leaving the mechanism in place and we headed off to load up on supplies.

We got what we wanted, came back and Willy worked around the house doing odd jobs until about 2:30 and after he left I decided to take a shower.  So I strip down and headed to the bathroom.  Keep in mind that I haven't had doorknobs for several weeks and I've gotten in the habit of slipping my fingers into the hole in the door and shutting it behind me.  Naturally, I did this yesterday and as soon as I heard a loud click I realized that I was now locked in the bathroom.  No phone, no tools, no doorknob...nothing but the realization that I'm now a naked idiot who just locked herself in.  I could see through the hole in the door and I knew it had to have a release on it to just press and unlock. 

I started looking through the vanity for makeshift tools to get my sweet little self out of this 5 x 8, 1969 olive green tiled bathroom.  I tried the handles of dental tools, I tried using the cardboard backing from a new toothbrush, I even tried to take the hinges off with the toilet paper holder.  Nothing would work. 

Now the funny thing about this incident and I can hardly type, for laughing at myself, is that when I was five years old, I locked my brother and myself in an service station bathroom and had to PRAY our way out.  This has been a joke in our family for years..."Susan, how did you and Mike get out of that bathroom?" ...the answer was always "we prayed".

I know He got a big laugh out of it when yesterday, I just looked up and said, "God, I'm sorry to ask again, but please help me get this door unlocked".  I wasn't scared, because I could see through the hole in the door.  For some reason in my craZy, naked thinking, that was comforting.  Believe me, the scenarios were flashing before my eyes like a Steven Spielberg movie. Scores of people finally realizing that I wasn't answering my phone and my doors were all locked and I wasn't where I was supposed to have been for hours and hours...well, you can imagine your own "locked in a box" scenes.

Basically I no longer wanted to figure out how to release the lock, I just wanted out. After ten minutes of trying to get out without destroying the lock, I said "what the hey" and just stuck the handle of my hairbrush into the hold and McGyvered myself out...

After I put some clothes on and realized I was OK, I got so tickled, I was almost rolling in the floor laughing.  I did call my friend and told him I was going to kill Willy when he got here. When they heard what had happened they could hardly stop laughing.  When they saw how I had demolished the new lock, they were really cracking up, in a subtle, shaking of the head kind of way.  They showed me where the quick release was on the (now broken) mechanism and really were quite astounded that I was able to get myself out at all, not knowing how to release the lock.

In the past two weeks, I have gotten my finger caught in the folding card table...no  phone, left hand not strong enough to release the offending spring that was about to dismember my digit.  Got out of that mess with pure adrenaline.   I stabbed my hand on the plastic cover on the inside of the new refrigerator when I went to catch a loaf of bread that was falling on my head.  That bled like crazy and the web of of my left hand is still sore and now I lock my stoopid self in the bathroom and have to break out.

Don't get me wrong, I like living by myself just fine, but it's weird not having someone to come to your rescue when you do something silly like, say, sew through your finger, or get the skirt of your dress caught in the vacuum cleaner or fall in a hole in a cave, or cut yourself on a new kitchen gadget. Such is my life.  I know that I need to regroup and not go off half cocked into everything that I do.  Think, woman, think.

Peri asked what I have learned from this latest incident...I guess keeping a phone in every room is the one thing I have learned... oh, and that prayer really can open those locked the doors in your life. 

Pretty good lesson, huh?