What it was like to be an adult on 3/18/06...

I had to break in to my own apartment.

I'll only mention this one part of a long, otherwise fun and delightful day (although I will do a quick aside about seeing Wicked for the third time, with the third Elphaba. I still stick by my original Elphie as the best I've seen: Stephanie Block. I think this third one was as good as her replacement number: 3rd best. Gasteyer only just won out...she was better comedic wise and hit some of the notes a bit stronger).

We got home from the musical and my key will not work in my dead bolt. It goes in, but won't turn. It isn't wiggling even a little. The bottom lock opened like a charm...so I knew it wasn't the key. The dead bolt has crapped out (at least it crapped out while it was locked...and please note that this is the SECOND time this has happened to me). After letting one of the friends have a go, just in case...realized our only hope was to go in the back. One known obstacle: the screen door is latched and we'd have to rip it. The back walkway is gated. I now know how creepy it is at night. There is one stairwell that you have to walk by that is just pitch, pitch black. So the three of us were a little creeped out.

We get to my door and unknown obstacle number one presents itself: random dead bird laying face up right in front of my door. So...we have to do some fancy foot work to avoid the freaky, dead, seemingly unharmed and fallen from the sky bird. Genius that I am, I realize we can use a program to flip up the latch through a crack without breaking the screen (take note criminals, this is how you can break into my apartment). Known obstacle one is fixed. I unlock the door successfully and try to open the door...When I remember that I have a steel "door jam" thingy wedged under the door knob to prevent a break in. Unknown (although if I had a memory of any sort it should have been a known) obstacle #2. I totally damned myself in this situation with that door jammer. Anyway, we eventually got the pole out of the way (although I will not tell you criminals how to achieve that part of the whole fiasco).

The whole thing was only slightly funny...but mostly scary. What would have happened if I wasn't with a soon-to-be pharmacist and soon-to-be doctor....where combined we were hopefully smart enough to get through the maze of obstacles (although if the door were made of tougher stuff and the knob wasn't so loosey goosey there would have been NO WAY we would have gotten in...Which means what? A lock smith at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night?). I called the landlord today and hope that my work request is at the top of the stack tomorrow. If it's not fixed tomorrow you can bet I'm going to be calling again. What am I supposed to do? I guess leave through the back? But I don't want to come in that way late at night (or even when it's dark at all).