Unlocky
The phone rings, but I’m busy on the computer and the number isn’t in my contacts list, so I decide to let it go. It tends to be my landlady roping me into things I honestly don’t have time for, and I have finally learnt my lesson. Politeness is overrated, people.
Then my phone beeps. Text message. “Hi there something with my lock I need ur help plz.” Signed, my housemate. Oh crap. I ignore a phone call for the first time in years and it’s my housemate who is trapped in his room. Nice one.
I go downstairs and ask him to pass his key under the door. The keys are on a key ring, so I end up going outside in my tracksuit bottoms and a pyjama top to take the keys he was dangling out of the window. He explains that the door locked itself as the door was shut and now it won’t open. I stick the key in the lock. The next key. The third and final key. The first key again. No luck. “Is it the silver key or one of the golden ones?” He has never actually locked his door before, so he doesn’t know. None of them will go into the lock. Damn.
I can’t get him out. He can’t get himself out. We manage to writhe open the door slightly, but part of the lock still catches and no amount of pressure applied most unceremoniously to the door makes a difference. I give up and give him our landlady’s phone number. She doesn’t pick up. I try some of the other numbers I have. Still nothing.
Just as I suggest he climbs out the window, my phone begins to ring. It’s the landlord. He suggests using a credit card, but all that does is bugger up the credit card. I ask my housemate if he wants a fork or something, and on the phone, the landlord says, “Knife!” Good idea. I grab a strong but old kitchen knife and he finally manages to force open the door.
Lessons learnt:
- The owners of this house need to be less of a cheapskate.
- My brain doesn’t function in the morning.
- Pick up the phone.