doh!

i've spent a good part of my afternoon cleaning my wasteland of an apartment. it has slowly been turning into a disaster area over the past couple of weeks, and i've managed to find excuses to put off the imposition of order into my living space. but i really couldn't live with myself if i went through the long, labor day weekend without straightening up, so i mustered the energy to do dishes, clean my kitchen and bathroom, de-cat-hair the bedroom and living room, and do laundry.

one of the ways my laziness of the past few weeks has manifested itself is that, rather than take my garbage out to the backyard, where my landlords put it out for the garbage trucks, i've just left it out, bagged up, on my fire escape. it's not that gross, it's not attracting bugs or creating a stench or anything. it's just clutter. and part of my clean-up today was to re-bag the bags on the fire escape (because they've gotten wet and stuff, and i feel better having them double bagged, for whatever reason).

now, milo, my little white bundle of cat joy, loves to go out on the fire escape, and if i'm out there reading, i let him come with me. but today it was all business -- bag up the trash and get on with the cleaning. so, i opened the door to take care of business and i could hear milo yelling at me behind me and then the door slammed shut. this isn't a big deal -- the door always closes behind me. but as i turned back to go in the apartment, the door was locked! LOCKED! i managed to lock myself on my fire escape!

of course, i blame milo. he must have done it. because in order to open the door onto the fire escape, you have to turn the handle and turning the handle automatically releases the push-in lock. it's virtually impossible to lock one's self outside. of course, a diabolical and hairy little white monster could manage to press in the lock while the door was closed with one carefully aimed jump...

even now he's being a jerk. he's sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen, refusing to look at me, staring outside as if he's actually interested. but i know better.

so, there i was out on my fire escape, for all intents and purposes, marooned. and feeling like a complete moron. but i had a couple of options. number 1, which was in my opinion the best option, was to climb up the stairs to the third floor fire escape, and knock on the door to michael and steph's apartment until they came and let me in. so i tried this out. i knew they were home because i had talked to michael earlier in the afternoon, but i stood there and knocked and knocked and knocked and no answer. so i wandered back to my fire escape level to regroup.

option 2 would be to actually implement the fire escape mechanism, climb out onto the stairs that would go from the 2nd floor fire escape to the ground. the stairs are weighted, so a person's body would force them down, but you can't get to them from the ground trying to go up. but, once i surveyed the scene below, i found that the stairs would put me on the ground in the middle of some bushes and a recessed area in the ground where the windows from the basement were located. so i decided to save this for a last resort.

option 3 was just silly. it involved me thinking i could somehow pry open a window and climb inside. but there are bars protecting the window and i am not smaller than 6 inches wide.

option 4 was that if i could find or fashion some sort of tool, maybe i could jimmy the lock on my door and let myself in. alas, i don't keep tools on my fire escape, and the only thing at my disposal were my bags of trash.

i did find a small rock, which i threw up at a window in michael and steph's place, but i missed it by a country mile, and the rock ended up bouncing off the side of the house and ending up on the ground below. damn it.

so i decided to try michael and steph's door one more time. this time it was successful! i did have to knock for a little while, though. and when michael came to the door, he laughed at me (which i deserved -- i did, after all, lock myself out on my own fire escape!). so i sheepishly thanked him for saving my life, and went back downstairs to my place.

ah, a day in the life of emily... i'm always good for the entertainment value...