...how....I mean...how?

Some people lock themselves out of their cars. Me, I lock myself out of my apartment. You might be asking yourself how this is possible...

So I'm in my apartment Monday night relaxing in front of the tv. The phone rings, and as I'm talking I walk outside on my porch. I close the sliding glass door behind me because it's raining and I don't want Duncan to go outside and get wet. I talk for a few more minutes and realize I left my glass of water sitting on the counter, so I start to go back inside to get it. That's when I realize the charley bar on the sliding door has fallen down into the locked position, thus locking me outside on the porch!

Flabbergasted as to how this has happened, I realize there are actually a few upsides to my situation. First of all, I live on the bottom floor, so I'm not stranded 2 or 3 stories in the air, requiring some valiant prince to come by and shout "rapunzel, let down your hair" in order for me to be rescued. Second, I happened to be on the phone, so I can easily call someone for help (and text my friends so they can laugh at me).

Now, you would think the simple solution would be to just call my mom, have her bring over my spare key, and let me in. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. If you are an avid blog reader, you may know about my paranoid fear of someone coming into my apartment at night (yes, despite the knowledge that if they did, I would destroy them like a cock-a-roach), resulting in a compulsive need for all the doors and windows to be locked at all times. This would include the inside deadbolt that has no keyhole on the outside. So, having a spare key does me no good. Neither does calling a locksmith. So my options are now break a window, or have a locksmith come over and drill through my door at 9pm at night. Or, I could just give up and deal with it all in the morning, except my car keys are also mocking me from the counter.

Fortunately, God was smiling on me and the apartment maintenance man arrived (laughing, might I add...good thing I was laughing too...). He happened to have some excellent sliding-door-jimmying skills and we were able to pry it open enough for me to slide through and lift the bar.

I'm not sure who else this kind of thing happens too.