Getting out the door

Since my past is so much more interesting than my present these days, I thought I'd share an amusing "day in the life" story from a couple years ago. Here goes ...

I was living with my parents (and brother) when they decided to put in hardwood floors on the main floor of the house. We had already been displaced for a day or two because of the fumes from the varnish, and had just come back to the house. My dad was not exactly happy with the finished product, so he called the guys again and asked them to put on another coat or two of the polyurethane finish. Supposedly, this would only take a couple of hours to dry and we would not be inconvenienced at all. The day the guy showed up to put the finish on, my brother and I were both at home and my parents were at work. It was pretty early in the morning when the guy called upstairs to let us know he was going to start. He needed to warn us because since we were upstairs, we wouldn't be able to get downstairs or out of the house until it dried. The wood floor began at the bottom of the stairs. So I thought, Well, it'll take a couple hours to dry and I'm not planning on leaving until later, so no big deal, I'll jut stay up here and take my time getting myself ready. I yelled back down to him, "Okay, that's fine." The guy seemed a bit confused, but I thought nothing of it and went about my business. Later, when he had finished working, he called back up to say he was done ... and that the floor would be safe to walk on in about 6 hours. 6 hours??!! 6 hours is not a couple!! I don't know where the person who told me "a couple" had gotten their information, but it was dead wrong. I tried to hide my surprise, but I was more than a little miffed. Especially since I had made plans to go to a movie with friends and had to leave in LESS than 6 hours. How the hell was I going to get out of my house?? Shortly after this news, my brother got up, and was faced with exactly the same dilemma. He also had to leave and had no way of doing so. At least that's what I thought. Apparently when we had the floors finished the first time, Butthead (my brother) had stayed at the house and had figured out a way to get outside without stepping on the wet floors. Our front door was at the bottom of the stairs, at a right angle from the bottom step, but the handle was at the opposite end, so when the door was open, it blocked the foot of the stairs, if you can picture that. So what Butthead did was reach over and open the door, then grab the top corner of the door and hang on while pushing off the bottom step, swinging himself out towards the open doorway and hooking his foot on the doorstep to pull himself all the way out. Sounds like a simple enough concept, but when I watched him do it, even he, a much younger, skinner, more muscular person than I, had some serious trouble and almost didn't make it. No way could I do that. I was (and still am) Out. Of. Shape. So I thought of another plan. When the floors were finished the first time, we had this board that we put up between the bottom step and the living room, which was across the entry-way (not a jumpable distance, in case you were wondering). I told Butthead to go to the garage and get the board and we could put that up for me to walk across. Unfortunately, he said that was impossible since he could barely lift the thing and it had taken essentially three people to put it up the first time, and even that had been hard. Umm, okay. Back to the drawing board. My next thought was actually kind of exciting as it's something I've always wanted to do. Since living in that house, I always figured that if there was ever a fire and I couldn't get out of my bedroom, in order to escape, I would go out my window onto the roof over the front porch and jump down to the ground. It was only one story, and the slant of the roof made it slightly less than that. So I told my bro the plan and went upstairs and onto the roof. Well, sitting up there with the actual intention of jumping was not as much fun as I thought it would be, and it's really quite a bit higher than I thought it was. Risking broken ankles to escape a fire is one thing, but risking broken ankles to get to a movie on time is another thing altogether. And not something I really wanted to test. So let's see ... a ladder!! I needed a ladder! My bro said he had used one recently to get back IN the house after being out late (sneak), but couldn't find it, so he attempted to get the big aluminum one down from the garage wall. I have no idea how my Dad does this, but apparently my bro was incapable of getting it down. But no matter, Butthead found the ladder he had used and brought it so it was directly underneath me. Unfortunately, it was UNDERNEATH me. As in 3 or 4 feet underneath MY dangling feet. And the wooden "platform" on the very top of the rickety ladder was cracked in half. Umm, no. Again, risking broken bones was not something I was willing to do that day. So, I was out of options. The only possibility that remained was to attempt the acrobatics that my brother had performed earlier with the front door. So I went downstairs, took a deep breath and decided to go for it. Butthead assured me that it wasn't really that hard and he thought I could do it no problem, but he'd be right there in case I needed him. So I opened the door, grabbed on to the top of it, and swung myself around so that I could hook my foot on the doorstep and pull myself out the door. Only problem was, once I got my foot hooked on, the door started to swing back INWARD and I was thisclose to landing in a crumpled heap on the still very wet floor and having the Wrath Of Dad upon me for ruining it. The only thing I could think of was to yell "Grab me!!" to my brother. He grabbed the back of my shirt and literally pulled me out the door before I could lay a toe on the newly finished hardwood. I DID IT!!! WE DID IT!! We made it out of the house!! I never thought I would be as happy to be outside my house as I was on that day. Then again, I never thought it would ever be as HARD to get out of the house as it was on that day.

A major obstacle was overcome, but my day did not get easier. It was quite a comedy of errors, actually. I wanted to call my Mom to tell her how long the floor was going to take to dry, but my cell phone went dead before I could say anything. I went to the ATM, but it was out of order and I had to go out of my way to find another one. I didn't know which showing of the movie we were going to because I hadn't heard back from my friends before I left ... and my cell phone was dead. When I got to the theater, I didn't see them, so I described them to the guy behind the ticket counter. He assured me that they had come in and were at the showing that was about to start, so I bought my ticket and went in. They were nowhere to be seen. I sat down, resigning myself to the fact that I'd be seeing the movie alone, but before the coming attractions had even finished, my friends came bounding into the theater only slightly later than they thought they'd be. At least ONE thing worked out well that day.

So at the end of the adventure, when I saw my family at dinner that evening, for once I actually had something interesting to say when Mom asked, "How was your day, sweetie?"