The Door

Last night I took home one of the toys (Yo-ho Diablo) from our store to practice with using its CD-ROM. I put some big cushions on the floor to dull the thud of each time I dropped it. My brother wanted to have a go. We shut the door so the noise wouldn’t bother anyone else. I found the CD ROM to be completely useless for this toy. In a huff I went to open the door.

The study door has given us trouble on and off and this time we can’t open it.

I thump on the door so someone will open it from the outside. No reply. So we yell a bit and thump some more. Help arrives but The Door won’t budge from outside. We’re stuck.

My brother tells our Dad to get some wire from his desk – he has been making chain mail using copper wire – but he comes back empty handed saying he doesn’t know what to get. Then our Dad fumbles about with a few screwdrivers in order to get the door knob plate off - not sure what that would achieve – while my brother tells him to leave it alone and starts trying to undo the string from the Diablo to somehow get the door open. I offer to sacrifice a copper, wire bird skeleton* I made some time ago, in order to pick the lock. That isn’t what he had in mind for the wire though, so he keeps on loosening the string for the Diablo. I sit there looking on patiently then…

…My VM tool box! Thank goodness someone moved it in here. I’d left it in the hallway from doing windows the day before. It’s here on the fireplace hearth. There must be something in here to get us out. I’ve got some string already so you don’t need to pull the Diablo apart, I say, and a screwdriver (our Dad is still fumbling away with screwdrivers complaining that all our good ones aren’t available). How about some steel picture cable? Excellent!
[cue music from McGyver!]
My cluey bro fiddles and threads the wire around the door striker, pulls and tugs and slips the striker out to open the door.

I’d been wearing a ‘guardian angel’ pin a friend gave me recently, to work yesterday. It could be just luck but I can’t help thinking maybe the little, golden fella helped.

Bytheway, that credit card trick that you see in movies to open doors is pure nonsense. That would only work if your carpenter is a thickie and forgot to put the door jam in (the thing the door butts up against when you shut it). We already knew this for a while of course - we’re a savvy family, especially my bro, when it comes to these things - but did you?

*Bit of semi-crappy sculpture I did. I could probably do better now :)