After a pleasant evening of dinner on the balcony while watching the sun set behind the Space Needle and sharing a bottle of wine, Tom headed down to take Theo for her final pee before bedtime. We now live on the 5th floor of an apartment building in Seattle, so it has become his job to take Theo out during the sketchier hours.
After a few minutes I heard the front door rattling and went down the hall to see what was up. Tom couldn't get the latch open. He rattled some more, and then I rattled from my side, trying to help him, and we both saw very quickly that something was wrong. We turned the knob every way, we applied the credit card approach (has that really ever worked for anybody? anybody?) and then Tom instructed me to get his tools, which I thrust uselessly at every bit of metal that seemed to be associated with the doorknob, but nothing worked.
While Tom proceeded to take apart the knob from the hallway, I resorted to what I do best: dialing. I called the emergency maintenance number for our apartment building about 10 times, knowing that I was not ingratiating myself by disturbing someone at
Finally somebody responded. A youngish-sounding woman told me she'd be right over. Now, I have every faith in my sex and I know we can do amazing things like birth children, but I admit I immediately leapt to the conclusion that a woman would be useless in this situation. After all, Tom is pretty adept at taking things apart and fixing them, even if it takes him several hours to do so, and he couldn't figure out the door, which seemed to be completely stuck. I didn't see what use this woman would be, and frankly was concerned for her coming over to our apartment in the middle of the night.
After a few minutes I heard Tom speaking with the woman in the hallway, and then some more rattling. More mumbling and then silence. "What's going on?" I called to Tom on the other side of the door. (This whole scenario reminds me of the scene in Gremlins when the two mogwai are on either side of a cardboard box and bang on it to communicate. Anyway.)"She was trying to pry the lock with a butter knife," Tom said. I could hear the disdain in his voice. "She's gone to get a better tool or something."
I rolled my eyes. See, I told you. A woman was no good in this type of crisis. Lots of other kinds of crises, yes, but not a lock-related crisis.Sure enough, she returned to rattle at the door some more, presumably with a bigger and/or better tool, with no luck. I sat on the other side, waiting breathlessly. Theo scratched, wondering what odd new game we were playing.
"Have you tried pushing it?" I heard the woman ask Tom.
"Pushing it? The doorknob?" he asked."No, the door," the woman said."Um, no..." Tom answered. Thinking, of course, that the last thing we would want to do is explain to the police why he was caught trying to bust down our own door three days after moving in. And then he quickly said, "Karen, stand back!"
I leapt up and backwards as the first BAM resounded. The second BAM brought a large, stocky woman, complete with mullet, barrelling into my apartment, splinters of wood flying everywhere. I kid you not. The woman stopped herself short in the middle of the hallway, holding a large piece of what used to be our door. She was no taller than my shoulder.
"Holy SHIT," I said.
"That was IMPRESSIVE," Tom said.
"My name is Lori," the woman said.
I will never doubt again. And I will certainly do my very best NEVER to piss off Lori.
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