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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Break and Enter

If you find yourself on a rainy afternoon thinking, "Hmm, I'm kinda bored.  It would be fun to go to Jess' house, have a beer, chat, let the kids play, and order a pizza for dinner," you may want to call my friend Erin, and ask her about our evening tonight, and then you may think again.
 
She came over this evening with her two boys, so our rugrats could run around together and so we could have a drink and catch up.  The evening was the normal amount of madness, until shortly before they were getting ready to leave, and she asked: "Where's Mason?" (Her 1 year old, who had, literally, been RIGHT THERE, 2 seconds before she asked that question.)
 
Turns out, he was in Jerry and I's bedroom, and like a small, blond Houdini, he'd managed to lock himself in there.
 
No one panicked.  I figured I could unscrew the doorknob, it would fall apart, and...viola!  1 year old is free!  Turns out, it was not so easy.
 
Poor Mason was calm at first, but after a few minutes of us NOT opening the door for him, he started to cry, and that triggered the "Mama Bear" in both Erin and I, and we were taking. down. that. door.  Let's just say that I pictured myself with the ninja-like abilities of a youthful, Action-Jeans-selling-Norris:
 

The reality was, of course, way cooler. 

I used a hammer to first force the other side of the doorknob through the hole (and probably bonked Mason on his little noggin) and then used the hammer to literally break the inner-workings of the door lock in half.  And then Erin had to carefully wiggle the remaining lock-bits out of the wall frame, and then...viola!  1 year was old free!

It was very dramatic.  Mason was crying (he had a crappy diaper, so he was mainly pissed that he was sitting in shit on his side of the door), Erin was crying, and I was laughing with relief and residual endorphins.

After they left, I called Jerry (he and Erin's husband, Ryan, were at their fantasy football draft) to tell him (triumphantly!) that we had broken the door knob off the bedroom door in order to rescue a stranded Mason.  His reply: "You know there's a skeleton key for all the doors on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet in my bathroom, don't you?"

No, no I did NOT know that.

But, for next time...

To top off my evening, as I was cleaning up the kid detritus after our friends had left and after the kids had gone to bed, I found that Scooter had pulled off the night's coup d'etat: He'd peed all over Jerry and I's bed.

So, no more Mr. Nice Guy Norris, I think I'm gonna go all Cruella DeVil on his ass.

7 comments:

MCM Mama said...

OY! Sounds like something that would happen in my house!

Kathee said...

That is so funny!!! Kids!

Erin said...

Like we mentioned after he was safely in my arms...we were kind of surprised with 4 years of kids in the houses it's the first locking in incident. It's funny in hindsight (kind of like when I stomped the log that broke your toe when we were camping; well, maybe that's not a good example).

I am just glad I wasn't alone when it happened!

Unknown said...

Yeah, but the skeleton key would have been much less of an accomplishment!

My kids have locked themselves in their bedrooms in the past. I was able to remove the hinges from the doors and take them down that way (just mostly luck, i think, that the hinges are on the outside of their doors). Always made me feel a bit like 007

Agate Lake Girl said...

Not sure if we have the same kind of door handles, but I find that skeleton key thing impossible to use. So I'm sure I would have had to resort to more extreme measures too.

Unknown said...

Hahaha I love that picture!!!

Shellyrm ~ just a country runner said...

I can picture you frantically beating that door knob. Sorry I am laughing.

(My interior doors have a pinhole lock relase. The kids have already figured out what things will fit into that hole when we try and lock them out of somewhere.)