Trapped in the bathroom - revisited



The move from Central Oregon to Yoncalla went quite well. I led the caravan at the wheel of a U-Haul van with Rosie cowering in her crate at my side and towing my ‘62 F100 pickup, next came Gus and Octavia in my car with Moose in the backseat, followed by Carlos bringing up the rear in Gus’s truck with Lilly and Bella strapped in their car seats.

Carlos had the little girls to entertain but they love their uncle and behave for him. Gus and Octavia enjoying some quality alone-time were hampered with Moose, aka Mr. Flatulence. Lots of time spent rolling down the windows whenever he cut a foul one. I figure I got the best of that deal. Gus actually suggested switching dogs at our one rest stop. Yeah, right.

Gus and Carlos began unloading as soon as we got to the new house while Octavia and I made a grocery run. We got back to find Gus searching for tools and Carlos nowhere in sight. Turned out he was locked in the bathroom. The door latch mechanism wouldn’t respond to turning the door handle. After a Keystone Kop routine we eventually figured the bathroom window was the only access point. Carlos took the screen out of the window, Gus handed him a straight-edge screwdriver, Carlos did some tweaking and freed himself. Of course we all had a big laugh.

We had a bigger laugh 20 minutes later when Octavia went into the very same bathroom, closed the door, and was trapped therein. Down to a science by now, she was freed in record time. Gus took the door off the hinges to prevent future incidents.

Next day, Gus reinstalled the door. I made a mental note to repair the door hardware. In the meantime I just left the door open.

Fast forward one week. Tyler came for the weekend. We unpacked. Tyler was sputtering comments like, “Why did you save this? Did you really need this?” Then the next thing I know we’re in Cottage Grove searching out thrift stores finds, trying to find new stuff to buy for my new house. Seemed ironic. At some point I informed my child that my intention was to never move again and that she would inherit EVERYTHING.
HA!

Well and good. Home again, I sauntered into the bathroom, closed the door. And was trapped. Tyler stood outside, taking delicate little bites of Jello tapioca (truly disgusting) and laughing. I’m locked in the bathroom, and my kid is taking inordinate pleasure from my dilemma while snacking on tapioca pudding. Hmmm. Go figure.

I said the previous lock-ins were Keystone Kops. For the record this lock-in was far beyond that. Bruised and battered from this whole move thing, I knew the bathroom window was the only way out. I also know my child is not that strong and perhaps just not that motivated to get me out (since she now knows she’ll inherit and who am I to interfer with a Jello tapioca pudding???) At my request, she got me the kitchen stepstool. Positioned right in front of the window, a very small window. She stands there snickering while I ponder a frontal move. Hmmm. Do I have the upper body strength to support the weight of my body as I wiggle out of this tiny little window or will I collapse on my face and take out my teeth?

I waited until my soon to be disinherited child, snacking away on pudding, had wandered out of view, before clambering out of the window (and indeed I had the requisite upper body strength necessary to pull my battered body out of that ridiculous little window). The door mechanism is currently disengaged.

Comments

Ronda Laveen said…
HA! Good thing you disenabled the lock. Wonder how long it had been that way. That area around Cottage Grove is very beautiful.

I have several massage tables the were manufactured there by a company called StrongLite.
Mon Jan 11, 10:30:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tastes like Chicken

Image
  Jim visited brother Dan in Palau mid 70s and came back with some wild stories of these gloriously beautiful tropical islands.  The ones that stuck with me are pretty much food related, go figure.  There was an open-air movie theatre in Peleliu filled with wooden benches for seating.  Rats were bold enough to scavenge food whenever, so movie viewers kept their feet up on the forward bench.   Hamburgers were served with a cabbage leaf for greenery, there being no iceberg lettuce on the island.  He met our friend Virginia there, she was maybe 13.  That girl took down fruit bats with a sling shot, a treat for her grandmother. They are a large bat species with a two-foot wingspan. She’d spot a roosting fruit bat hanging upside down from a tree branch, pop a small rock into the slingshot, eyeball the angle and let loose.  She had incredible aim.  She’d  nonchalantly balance in a squat to  husk a coconut wit...
Read more

Ethel strikes back

Image
  Grandma was a teacher and she drove the 18 miles from Powers to Myrtle Point every school day.  It’s a pretty drive on a narrow road that hugs the hillside high above the snaking south fork of the Coquille River, past high pastures and a few scattered houses. One day there went Ethel on her morning commute when she noticed “Howard Post” boldly painted on a large rock embedded in the hillside.  She kept going and there was another one.  Then another one. For a stretch of several miles young master Howard took it into his adolescent brain to spray paint his name on many, many exposed boulders in the hillside.   My grandmother’s solution to this embarrassment was to buy her own can of spray paint and on the way home that day, wearing a dress, (she wore only dresses then,) she stopped the car and over-painted every “Howard Post” she could reach.   It took many years for that paint to fade.  
Read more

Pasta ala Norcina from America's Test Kitchen

Image
I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.   Any recipe from their site that I’ve cooked has turned out beautifully.   The great thing is they do all the testing and tweaking so all I have to do is follow the recipe.   At least the first time. A recipe for sausage and pasta recently aired.   I limit pasta in my diet these days, but every once in a while I’ll indulge.   And this recipe looked so good I made a mental note to cook if for Terry, being certain he’d love it. Then a friend who’d suffered a serious illness was released from the hospital, and here was my opportunity to give this a try.    I doubled the recipe, filled a large casserole for my friend, then one for Terry, and had enough left just for me, me, me.   And it is superb! Four fork review from all who were treated to this dish. It's not real pretty but the rosemary spiced sausage makes me forget that. Serves 6 White mushrooms may be substituted f...
Read more