LOCKED

On a recent morning the door on one of the upstairs bedrooms closed nicely behind me.  Just like it always does.  The problem was it wouldn’t open when I wanted it to, a mere few minutes later.  Initially, I found the situation amusing.  Three hours later my sense of humor had gotten up and gone away.

I wanted to be the one who got up and went away.  But I couldn’t.  I was locked in.

I was trapped in one room.  Which was getting smaller all the time.  Happily, my screams reached the Mister who tried….or tried to try….to rescue me.

After a frustrating and seemingly eternal period, the locksmith was beckoned. Tiny tools were passed under the door.  Door hinges were removed.  Nothing worked.  Getting me out was his job and it wasn’t going well.

We love this old house but the layers of paint which have been applied to all surfaces during the years did a wonderful job of keeping me securely locked in.

The mind does funny things when it has been denied access to normal everyday things.  It doesn’t take long to get squirrelly.

Everyone else was able to go up and down stairs, to talk on phones, to eat cookies, to drink coca-colas and attend to increasingly urgent and compelling personal issues.  I couldn’t.  And it wasn’t even my fault.

Obviously, we finally freed me.  I knew we would.  Even though I really thought we could have done it a tad bit sooner.

Captivity is not fun.  And, yes, captivity may be overstatement for my predicament, but the only way out of that room, aside from the locked and painted-over door, was a locked and painted-over window.  Two and a half stories above the ground.

In some small way, I take comfort in the fact that it took three hours to get me OUT.   Surely any sensible burglar attempting to get IN would give up long before that.