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Date Posted: 21:19:02 04/02/01 Mon
Author: fr, Ellen
Subject: My mishap better than your mishap

�Ellen visits the Twilight Zone�
by
Ellen Chase

The morning of Saturday March 24th Ellen was getting something out of her closet when �bang� she was hit in the head by one of the poles attached to her three door closet, it ricocheted off her and struck a mighty blow to her amoire. Startled ,then angry, she went to Home Base and Home Depot to see custom three door closets and get prices. After spending a couple hours doing that returned home and wrote a letter to the manager of the apartment complex where she lives, requesting prompt action on her plight. Explained that the door was a hazard and now her living room was an eyesore with the offending door and doorframe lying there for removal. Alas! the manager was not home, spring break with little children! Gone who knows where. Monday the manager called, said she was very sorry and needed her permission to enter the apartment. Permission was given.

That evening at 7PM Ellen was working her second job at Sears and it occurred to her that if the manager by chance entered the apartment right away she would lock both locks on the door. Ellen only carried a key to her deadbolt lock and never bothered with the one in the handle of the door.
OOP�s! Ellen called the manager right away and intended to ask her to unlock the daylock if in fact she had been that prompt. There was no answer so Ellen left a message about the impending problem and hoped that it would be solved by the time she got home that night.

Leaving Sears at approximately 9:35PM Ellen was pretty confident the situation was resolved. She drove past the manager�s house, noted that the car was not in the driveway, but continued on to her apartment, hoping against hope that she did not have a problem and the door lock was unlocked. Upon inserting the deadbolt lock key and turning it she was aware that another lock was in place and she could not enter her apartment. �Okay! she thought to herself, this is not so bad. The manager has little children so of course would not be gone all night.� Drove back to the manager�s house and went to the door. Maybe there car was in the garage. Rang the doorbell at approximately 10PM, no answer but the dog barked. That was encouraging because Ellen was sure that they would not have left the dog in the house if they we not going to return for the night. Decided to sit in her car waiting for them to return. By 10:30 PM Ellen was still thinking about the problem at hand. It occurred to her that some time soon she would have to go to the bathroom. Oh!Oh! that time arrived right away upon thinking about it. �Get a grip, Ellen� she thought to herself. �Not to worry�. Drive about a mile up Center Street and use the facilities at a restaurant, Red Robin. While she was at it she went back to the manager�s house and thought she would call the emergency number that was embossed on a black plastic tape under a sign that said �Emergency Number�. Couldn�t read it in the dark(never thought once to train her headlights on the sign) so by feeling the numbers memorized them and thought she would go to a payphone and call them. Two birds with one stone so to speak. Decided on the bathroom thing first then found a payphone and dialed the number she had written down. Operator recording said �That number has been disconnected�. �Oh, me!Oh, my!� she thought . �Not to worry, they are probably home by now.�

No they weren�t. She settled down to some serious thinking then. Did she really to spend the night in the car. The answer was �No�! What were her options. Rent a motel room she thought. She had cash, credit card and checkbook. Not the answer she thought. Needed overnight bag for that or find a store that was still opened that sold contact lens supplies, toothbrush and toothpaste. Ellen was never a good camper. She remembered she had a dental appointment at 8:30AM next day, which somehow made things seem worse.

About that time two young men approached the manager�s house and �lo and behold � they entered. Ellen remembered the manager had a grown son. Happiness flooded her. Hopped out of the car went quickly to the door, rang the doorbell, and the young men answered. Ellen quickly summarized her situation and asked for her door key. Daniel, manager�s son, said he couldn�t give it to her because the keys were locked up and not accessible to him. He and his friend invited her in so they could discuss it further. The young men concluded that the manager and her family might be gone all night because it was still spring break. Daniel tried to reach them on their cellphone, it was turned off.

At that point it was past 11PM so Ellen thought she�d have to take action. Back to the not so good solution of renting a motel room. Mentioned that to the young men, and happened to mention that she did have the key to the deadbolt lock, but not the other one. The boys eyes lit up, and said �we can let you in with a credit card� . Ellen was overjoyed. Followed them down the road to her apartment, by the time she got there the door was open. She was very grateful to say the least to Daniel and his friend, but couldn�t resist having them show her this �breaking and entering� technique. One more bit of knowledge to fill the brain.

Right after they left it finally occurred to Ellen that she should have called a locksmth and gotten in right away. Another solution to have on file in the brain.

It is my understanding that now Ellen has three �complete sets of keys�, one in the car, one in the
purse and one hanging on the hook in the apartment.

Epilogue

Ellen had a good night�s sleep, Got to the dentist as scheduled, made it to work AND the closet door was fixed when she got home from work that night.

I love happy endings don�t you?

PS: This was worse than spilling coffee on the keyboard.

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