I want to blame the British, but it could be karma.

Let’s start by talking about how I got trapped in my bedroom this weekend.

The wonderfully constructed, cheap plastic door handle fell off this indestructible metal box with a dead bolt and latch, leaving me absolutely no way to get out of my room until someone could open the door from the outside.  Jumping out the window isn’t an option because our back yard is completely sealed off by a big brick wall which I couldn’t get over, so if I didn’t have my phone in the room with me I’d have been trapped from 10 am until about 2 in the morning.

I have many problems with the way the British construct doors because most of them have never heard of the door knob, and if there is a knob it’s a total PoS as demonstrated above.

For example, take a look at my front door.

WHO ON EARTH thought, “You know what – we could put a door knob here and some dead bolts people could twist from the inside, but let’s not. Let’s put a sharp metal ring that people can slide their fingers through to pull open the door, and let’s make it so you can only lock the dead bolt with a key, that way people can potentially be trapped in the house if there is a fire and they can’t find their keys.”

Here is my door knob that so cleverly doubles as a hook for the chain:

 

And here is the outside of the front door, with the little pull handle so close to the key hole that it’s very difficult to turn the key without twisting your hand in an awkward position or getting your finger pinched.

But back to me being trapped. My friend Clay loved the fact that I got trapped in my room because a joke I played on him one time caused him to actually have to jump out of a second floor window. His room mate and I took a screwdriver and dismantled his door knob one night because … well, for no reason. It was funny, but Clay didn’t think so. Then his door wouldn’t shut properly and got stuck a few months later. He was trapped, and his phone was in the living room so he had to jump out the window.