friendly neighbors

Thank the lord for nice neighbors who are home at 10:50am in the morning... I was sitting here screwing around when the "doorbell" phone rang, so I picked up and buzzed whoever it was in. I think it was the post office or mail lady. Anyway, I went down to see who/what it was and get my mail. Originally I chose not to close my door, but then I decided I would because I had grabbed the keys for the mailbox, which include the key for the apartment, so why not close the door, right? I went downstairs and check the mailbox, got the mail inside (a water bill) and then walked back upstairs. I put the key in the door and went to unlock/open the door, but the key did not spin. What is going on!?!?!? After a momentary thought, I remembered I had placed a spare apartment key in the lock on the inside. Apparently this renders the outside/opposing keyhole useless because now I could not turn the key to open the door: uh oh...

After momentary panic, I had many thoughts running through my head about needing a locksmith or who can I contact or what should I do, how much will this cost? I had nothing other than my shorts, shirt, sandals, a set of currently useless apartment keys and a water bill! I had no phone, no money, nothing! My first instinct was to try and pick the lock, but that would never work. Then I thought about kicking the door in, but thought that would be really dumb for a lot of reasons. I thought some more and remembered that our apartment is second story above a roof, so I thought if I could get on the roof and use a ladder or chair, I might be able to get onto the ledge outside our window, which is open and crawl inside. Ok, put this plan to action...

Knock on first neighbor next door, no response. Walk toward first floor and run into cleaning lady... I tried to explain my situation in my panicked "Spainglish", but that meant nothing to her, so I continued to the outside to assess the situation. After surveying the situation from the plaza below the window and looking for any ladders or anything, I went back inside to the first floor, hoping to knock on the apartments below me and get on the roof and go through the open window. The first apartment owner was not home. The second and last chance apartment was home and after doing my best to explain the situation and having the fortune of finding a tall step ladder in the stairway of the first floor, I was able to go up the ladder, boost myself to the ledge and happily go through the window into my apartment. Wow, what a relief.

Crazy to think about the situation as I sit here now right afterward. All the time Lisa and I were here we didn't lock ourselves out, and we made a spare key to hide, but never did. Then she is gone, I do something crazy like this, a spare key would have been no help at all; in fact it was the cause of the problem, and it just so happened that there was one nice neighbor home and a conveniently placed step ladder big enough to get me to the window ledge that thankfully existed. What a chain of events for me this fine morning. My heart is still beating fast. And now I am a little worried that somehow someone could break into the apartment if they really wanted to. Although that would require them getting onto the roof and having a ladder. I think I am safe. Yikes, I need something to calm me down... perhaps a walk to the market.