Tabatha Deans

CRISES IN THE CITY
Feeling restless and excited about life in the big city, I decided to step out onto the fire escape to try and get a picture of the city lights at night. The access to the fire escape is through a door in the hallway right outside of my door, and beginning to feel a little paranoid about carrying my keys, which are attached to my keychain, which is attached to my pepper spray, I threw caution to the wind and stepped outside my apartment without my keys, or my cell phone. I entered the door to the fire escape and removed the two by four’s that are used to hold the security piece of plywood in place. I sat on the fire escape overlooking the alley way and the city, and admired the city lights. They’re like a wall of colorful gems rising up before me, and I inhaled the warm night air as I admired them. After about ten minutes, I was feeling relaxed and refreshed, and I crawled back inside to retire to bed.
But to my horror the door had locked behind me, and no matter how hard I tried I could not jimmy the door open. Panicked, I considered my options. There was only one. I scaled down the fire escape, which was easy for the first two floors since it was metal steps, but the last floor consisted of climbing down the metal ladder that was attached to the brick building. I then circled around to the front of the building, only to find that the security door was locked. My phone was inside so calling my landlord wasn’t an option, and although I considered calling Tim to come all the way here to get me I didn’t even know his phone number. Now I had three options. One—wait for someone to come along and go into the building, and follow them in. I know one lady in the building has a dog and there might be a chance she would take him out for a walk before going to bed. Two—knock on the first floor window of Raoul, and sheepishly explain that I’d locked myself out on the fire escape. Three, and the most promising, was to wait for someone to step out onto one of the common patios for a cigarette, then beg for entrance into the building. I waited and watched, and after a few minutes nobody had come in or out of the building, so I perched myself up on the front stoop and was prepared to knock on Raoul’s window.
Luckily, just as I was about to commence knocking, a gentleman on the second floor appeared on the balcony for a cigarette. I offered up a lame excuse about taking out the garbage and getting locked out, and he was kind enough to come down and let me in. But I still had to get into the room that led to the fire escape and replace the security plywood. I was prepared to scale the backside of the building again, but luckily the door opened from the outside. I quickly replaced the security boards and ran back into my apartment, where I remained for the evening. Note to self: Never, ever, leave the building in any way without my keys.

April 6, 2011 - Posted by Tabatha Stewart | Uncategorized