Trapped in the bathroom

Note from Angel: This story is from a few years ago. While it is the recounting of a humorous incident in my life, I think it also captures a mindset that I have no conscious memory of cultivating, but has popped up throughout my life. I sometimes state it as “We can do hard things.” It is an underlying belief that I can do whatever I set my mind to. I thank my father for that. He had a subtle way of encouraging me to do things that could have easily seemed out of reach. As you read the story, keep in mind that I didn’t really ‘need’ to escape from the bathroom, I just really wanted to…

On Friday I got trapped in my bathroom.

We have these funky doorknobs that inexplicably lock up and cannot be opened without breaking down the door.

Seriously. Who designed this sh*t?

Spoiler alert: I am no longer trapped in the bathroom.

I was able to MacGyver myself out after about 45 minutes using a stick of deodorant, some nail clippers (though they didn’t prove to be integral to my escape) and a towel rack.

My first reaction upon discovering I was trapped was panic – oh why hadn’t I brought my phone in with me, when would Mike be home, what about the meeting I had scheduled for an hour from now? I banged on the door, I wiggled the doorknob aggressively, I paced the floor – two steps in this direction, then two steps back.

I began to beg the universe to send Mike a telepathic message to come home. I cursed his vague goodbye – “I’m going to run a few errands, I will be home…sometime” and hoped he had forgotten something. I banged on the door some more.

I thought – "there must be something I can use for a tool. Hairbrush – no, toothpaste – useless. Shampoo bottle – well, if I want the door to smell nice…" I tried using the bathroom scale to break down the door – it only served to make a few dents in it, but it did feel good.

I used the nail clippers to unscrew the doorknob, though I knew from experience that would do nothing. It just made me feel better to be trying something.

I went back to pacing, panicking and a little shouting. I sat down on the floor, dejected and thought, “well, maybe I will just take a bath.” Then “NO, you’ve got a meeting to get to. Your colleagues will worry – they won’t know what to make of you not showing up.” Honestly, if it weren’t for the meetings I probably would have just taken the bath and waited it out.

But I also knew I couldn’t wait. Anxiety was creeping in, the lack of control over the situation led me to keep pounding, pacing and searching for some miraculous discovery of a secret stash of bathroom tools. What I needed was something to act like a hammer. I came back to the hairbrush. Now, had it been a hairbrush I use – we’re talking some heft. But the one my husband uses I am pretty sure he just waves near his head hoping it doesn’t make any more hair fall out. It would not do.

Bar of soap? – don’t be ridiculous.

Tampon? – I was desperate, but not illogical.

Finally, I tried a stick of deodorant. I was able to use a door stop to wiggle one of the pins from the hinges out of place. Then I stuck that pin in the other hinges like a tap, and used the deodorant to knock their pins out. Brilliant.

Only one problem, I couldn’t get the door to come off the hinges, because the damn clasp from the door knob which started this whole thing was still stuck. There wasn’t enough room on top or below the door to get my fingers in there to gain any leverage and pull the door away from the hinges.

Back to the hunt for tools, this time, a crow bar. Turns out, we do not store our crow bars in the bathroom. I tried pulling the towel rack off the wall to no avail. I searched the cabinet again – dismayed to find the exact same useless crap that was in there the first time.

There was a towel rack hanging over the door that I wanted to try and pull off to use as a crow bar. I yanked and yanked, but it was on there for good. The top was hooked over the door so that there was no way to pull it out, and it was not bendy enough for me to change the shape of it to slide it off.

I paced, panicked and shouted some more. I sent out more telepathic messages. I hoped that my neighbor might hear something, enough to make her call Mike and ask if everything was okay.

I yanked on the towel rack out of frustration. The door began to move. I had little hope that I would actually be able to get it loose, as there was so little room between the bottom of the door and the floor. But I kept at it. Like a loose tooth, the top hinge popped off, then the middle one. I tried to line up the bottom hinge so that it could get the clearance to come off. It wouldn’t budge. The door kept falling out of alignment. I almost gave up.

Then it happened, the door came off, gently falling into my hands. And with only a little damage to the door, just to remind it what I am capable of. I was even on time for my meetings, if not a little flustered.

So, if you come visit and find we have childproof (or missing) doorknobs, you now know why.