Door Knobs and Broomsticks

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the bath. To fully understand this embarrassing event I must start at the beginning.

My followers know that Thanksgiving has always been my danger holiday. The last one was no exception. No broken hips or split head this time, but a crisis nonetheless.

Last Thanksgiving I had been invited to a posh home in the Foothills for dinner and wanted to look my best. The bathroom that I use is at the end of my house and is always chilly. I, therefore, have a heater in the room. Before showering, I turned the heater on to warm the room and came in to watch TV while the room reached a comfortable temperature. Imagine my surprise when I went to take my shower to find the room locked. Living alone means I never, never, never lock an inside door. But this sucker was locked. Tight !

I tried poking things in the little slot to no avail. In desperation I called a friend who came with his tool kit to help me reach my goal. He didn't have any better luck than I did and decided the only way to get me in the room was to saw the doorknob off. My nerves matched the grating noises of the hacksaw as he mightily sawed away. Finally, 'Mission accomplished'. The door was open. I thanked him and he left me to my ablution.

Fast forward to Thursday. I had been waiting to replace the door knob until Tuesday Morning had another sale on lever handles. Happy Day! The long awaited day arrived; lever door handles at half price. When I reached the store my disappointment was huge. Half price on designer knobs was way beyond my budget. My good friend who took me to look at them realized how unhappy I was so she took me to Lowe's where I purchased 9 new lever handle knobs. Okay, I get it. I should have done that in the first place and I would have been enjoying my new door hardware for over two months. I am a slow learner.

Twenty five years ago I changed all the door knobs in my house by myself. With the confidence of that experience, I got out my trusty screwdrivers and prepared to take the remains of the old handle off. No problem, thinks I. A piece of cake. Only it wasn't. The existing knobs were not so simple and I didn't know the trick of getting them apart. I unscrewed the two visible screws but didn't know there was another one lurking under the face plate. For two days I kept unscrewing the two screws wondering why they didn't fall out.

My cleaning lady decided she could remove the pesky knob. She took a hammer and, although she gave up, she did manage to remove the face plate and the hidden screw was exposed. Aha! Now I have no problem. As soon as she left I rushed in to finish to job. Hoo boy! That screw was easy to remove and when it fell out everything except the center piece fell off with it. Oops! The bolt was in locked position and I was locked in.

I wiggled, I jiggled, I poked and prodded the blasted thing and it didn't move. Since I was in a room only good for two things, and eating wasn't one of them, I knew I had to get help. So I pressed my trusty medical alert button. The voice from the alert box asked if I was alright. I told her I was fine, but I needed help extricating myself from the bathroom. This is undoubtedly one of the strangest emergencies she ever had to deal with. I asked her to call a neighbor to come over. When the neighbor arrived the 'voice' was still there waiting to see if the problem was resolved.

I asked my neighbor to go get one of the few men in our complex to bring his tools to extricate me. My neighbor is a nice generous lady, but she is the kind of person who knows best. So she and the voice called the fire department. And that is the start of my embarrassing experience.

One of the firemen managed to move the part enough to release the bolt and the door flew open leaving me facing three young firemen. They didn't know when they came that they were not coming for a critical call, but to just do a carpenter job. One of them asked me if that's all I needed. (I'm sure he must have been disappointed to have nothing to do but just stand around.) With a red face I assured him that I was fine. I thanked them and saw them to the door where I saw the great big red fire truck parked outside.

I have created lots of excitement in the neighborhood since I moved here. But it's getting downright tiresome. I have had the firemen and/or the paramedics here 6 times in 10 years. I have broken my ribs in the middle of the night, had a gall stone attack that mimicked a heart attack, broken my hip, fallen in the street on my scooter, fallen by my front door and now the most pitiful one of all; locking myself in the bathroom. I am getting quite a reputation with my neighbors, but I shudder to think what they call me at the firehouse. They certainly know how to find my house now. One more "Help. I've fallen and I can't get up or out" will do it. Do you think I might be on their s---t list?

My neighbor pointed out the fact that I could have just gotten out of the shower and could have been without clothing in there. Now that would definitely have been the most embarrassing experience of my life. I can just see the firemen rolling on the floor with laughter when they saw this old wrinkled lumpy body facing them. This is the vision of nightmares.

My ego is now like a deflated balloon. I was so sure I was still capable of doing the job myself. Sigh!!

My handyman just left.

And I now have 9 of these on my doors.

Alert: This morning's Huffington Post has a good article on the televised program on the 25th between Obama and the Republicans on Health Care Reform. The article includes the topics that will be covered (as released by the White House) as well as commentary on what might happen. I found it worthwhile and hope you will too.

The program will be televised starting at 10 am Eastern Standard Time on C-Span and, perhaps, other channels. I would guess the CNN and, perhaps, MSNBC will air it. Click on the link to read the article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-bergthold/health-reform-d-day---feb_b_468249.html