Lee gets locked in
LEE ZION, EDITOR
Harrison County Times-Reporter
It seems that a disproportionate number of wacky things happens to me. I have already told you about the time when my all-electric car somehow got stuck to a charger in town, and not even the police could unhook it.
As it turns out, I am not the only guy this ever happened to. I’ve heard about other cases of stuck cars on the Internet. It seems some models of Chevy Bolt had a design flaw. The Bolt had an extra and useless part that stuck out, like an appendix, and some vehicle chargers have an extra thing sticking out, as well. When the two of them meet, they will never unmeet.
The people who owned the charging station were able to fix the problem by dismantling the charger and removing both parts, so it seems I will never face this situation again. And no, I won’t tell you the name of the business, because they did come to my rescue. I won’t drag anyone through the mud, and besides, you don’t own an electric vehicle. So why do you need to know?
That was my one difficulty with arriving in Missouri Valley to settle into my new job. I never thought another would come up.
Until I encountered the door that wouldn’t open.
I had recently moved into my new place, right around the corner from the Harrison County Times-Reporter. It’s a nice enough apartment, but the landlord warned me that the door sometimes sticks. Especially when it’s hot and humid.
I was fine with that. I quickly became accustomed to pulling on the door real hard at the end of the day, and pushing it real hard in the morning when it was time to go to work. For the days this was really rough, I bought a screwdriver and jimmied it in between the door and the frame. By wiggling it around, I was able to loosen the door.
Except last week. I was ready to go to work, but the doorknob wouldn’t turn.
Before any of you say, “Hey, dummy! You’re supposed to unlock the door before you try to step through,” let me assure you I did think of that. I turned the lock with a click, and the knob wouldn’t budge at all. Then I turned the lock with another click, and this time the knob turned just enough to tantalize me with the possibility of freedom — without any actual freedom.
Instead, I was trapped in the stairwell. What could I do? Call the cops? Again? No. Once was enough. Climb back up the stairs and jump out the window onto the hard concrete below? Uh, let’s save that for an actual emergency, like if the apartment is on fire. Either way, I’ll get injured, but at least I’d have a better chance of surviving two broken legs.
I had my phone with me, so I started to make some calls. The only problem was I hadn’t saved any numbers yet, so I had no idea which face matched which number. All I could do was call at random.
I did have the number for my landlord, so that was the first number I called. I left a message. Then there was the person who should have answered, but instead, I got a voice announcing that this person had not yet set up a voicemail box, and therefore I couldn’t leave a message.
I won’t name names. They know who they are. Unless they don’t, in which case they are
dumber than I thought.
After that, I dialed randomly, hoping I could reach someone from work. That way I could explain why I was late, and maybe could someone walk around the corner and open my door from the outside?
I didn’t get someone from work. Instead, I reached a woman I went on a date with a week
earlier. Somehow, over the course of the meal, she decided she didn’t like me, although I had no idea what I did to set her off. I vowed that I would never call her again. Except, I just did, and had to explain that one.
Finally, someone came to my rescue. I didn’t know who was on the other side of the door, but I heard a click-click sound, and I was finally able to open the door on my side.
It was Jean Wortman, from the Chamber of Commerce. Now she can add me to her resume. Tireless advocate for business and rescuer of dweeb editors who can’t even exit the building. I thanked her and started my day, which includes writing this piece. Oh, and by the way, if you’re a policeman on patrol, and you see something that looks like a suspicion person trying to jimmy his way into a building around the corner from the Harrison County Times-Reporter, relax.
It’s just a guy trying to enter the apartment that he previously couldn’t get out of.
You remember me, right? I’m the guy who couldn’t extricate his car from the charger.
