A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Back from the Garbage (Chute)

This happened on Thursday:

I was getting a ride back to my apartment from one of my classes with two of the other MFA dudes that are also in the class with me - both also first year students in this program. We all live in close proximity to each other, but in different buildings/complexes. They asked me what they thought of the building where I live. I told them I had no complaints. I've been there for almost three months now, and its been fine. My electric bill isn't terrible. Maintenance has been fine. And I live in the building that houses the leasing office, so they repaint the walls all the time.

I was hosting a small vegetarian potluck dinner Thursday night so they were both coming over later anyway, they could see for themselves the glorious mediocrity of my building. (And, incidentally, it is possible to play classical music at social gatherings - I played exclusively classical music, and the only thing to garner comment was Schumann's Piano Concerto ("This music is epic, Pete.") so Jack was unnecessarily wary of playing such things at his party last week.)

But of course, no sooner do I state my generally satisfied opinion of my building then something comes along to test that resolve. I went to throw away a bag of trash from apartment. There are small laundry rooms on every floor of the building which are also host to the garbage shoot. No sooner had I entered the laundry room then the door swiftly slammed shut. I was unable to open it. I spent the next ten minutes knocking on the door, hoping that someone would eventually hear it. I then called a neighbor to see if she could come get me out, but by the time I was making that phone call, finally someone was on the other side of the door, trying to open it.

The door would not budge. By now there were two helpful-sounding female voices on the other side of the door, asking me my name and urging me to stay calm. I was informed that they were going to call Fire/Rescue so they would come get me out. I said maybe they should just call Maintenance, but it was after 5 in the evening, and they assured me that it would take hours for anyone from maintenance to show up - I was really better off with Fire/Rescue.

I next overheard a sequence of phonecalls between one of the women and the Fire/Rescue. "Yes, I realize this isn't an emergency, but the door is very heavy and is stuck." "No, he's not a child." "For the third time, we just need you to come open the door." Needless to say, I was quite skeptical as to whether or not Fire/Rescue would even come, and continued to recommend that they just call maintenance. Fire/Rescue then, apparently, agreed to contact the Police, and have some cops come by to see what they could do.

Next, one of the girls slid her laundry card under the door and asked me to move her laundry from the washer to one of the dryers. "Uhhh... okay." With the dryer on, the room became quite noisy and began to get hotter and hotter. I began to sweat a bit more, and passed the time by sending text messages to various friends, letting them know that we may have to delay the dinner party, as I was locked in a laundry room. After about 45 minutes there was suddenly a very loud metallic sound at the door. I plugged my ears and removed myself to the far corner of the room.

After several more sequences of the loud noise, a crow bar burst through the edge of the door and pried it open. I was greeted by four upstanding members of my fine community's Fire/Rescue department. "Hey, thanks!" I said. They all kind of laughed and mentioned that wow it was hot in there. I agreed. They then proceeded to knock the handle completely out of the door, to make sure that they wouldn't have to come right back the next time someone went to do laundry or throw away garbage.

I'm just hoping now that it doesn't get back to building management that the door was mangled on my behalf, since it'd suck to have to pay for the damage done by the massive Fire/Rescue crowbar thing. Pretty funny though!