All of us live miniature adventures every day, with varying levels of resultant trauma. Our mom always says that “every life’s a novel.” Our grandfather used to say about crazy stories that “if it’s not true, it should be” (God rest his soul). We have adventure stories to share from here to breakfast–so I want to share the story of the time I was trapped in my apartment.

So I’m home for lunch, and I’m sitting in my apartment. I’m eating a turkey sandwich and a baked potato because I am what? That bitch, and guess what? That bitch loves carbs, and the carbs love me.

So.

I step outside my door into the entryway of my apartment, with my chakras aligned with getting back to the grind and making that paper money (obsviousleh) when I see these two beautiful girls standing by the door disconsolately. I think, “oh they’re waiting for an Uber or something.” But then I try the door and it won’t open. So then I think, “oh no, we’re all going to starve to death here,” so I start thinking about which of them has more meat on her bones to sustain me, because being trapped in the entryway will not halt my #twink2twunk twansformation if I can help it.

So.

They introduce themselves as my neighbors and are like “yeah… we can’t leave” (which, bummer). For some reason, the door won’t open. So we’re trying the door, slamming, whatever, to no avail. Then this other girl comes from outside, and she can’t open it either. Everyone’s calling maintenance and leaving them messages, and I think Outside Girl called her boyfriend? But there is no help. By the way, I feel like it’s maintenance’s job to prevent people from being trapped in their building. Like, it wasn’t an emergency exactly but it very well could have become one.

Anyway I’m like fuck it, I’m supergirl and I’m here to save the world and I wanna know who’s gunna save me. So I run back into my place and grab my toolbox. I run around my back entrance (yes, I have a back entrance, but you can’t lock the door from the outside so I couldn’t leave the building that way without leaving my apartment unlocked. I was still technically trapped in the building, even if I had an avenue to leave. Also, don’t criticize! This is my story).

So I go up to the door and unscrew a couple of things so I can get to the inside workings of the knob (side note: I am not a knob scientist (except in the gay way) so I had no idea what I was doing). In the meantime another guy comes up and we’re all like, “funny story… this place is as stopped up as Mike after four Imodiums” (Imodia?) and he’s like, “fuck.” I now have a proper audience of residents all watching me struggle to dismantle a door that is mysteriously acting more like a wall. So I, in my Masc4Masc fury, take my toolkit and finagle the knob until I see that a screw has come loose from the latch face and is barring the door. At this point, I figure I have enough extracurricular credit to earn myself a knobology degree, but KU won’t email me back about it.

Everyone is watching me at this point, I’m dressed embarrassingly like a straight accountant, but I’m on a fucking mission. So I manage to pull at the screw that’s holding everyone in using my needle nose pliers. For some reason, it’s not threaded properly (which is why it fell out of place). So I’m pulling and plucking like Frida Kahlo trying to conform with Western beauty standards, which are inherently unreasonable for women’s biology, and I hear a clang when the screw falls and I magnanimously say, “TRY IT!” And Rebecca tries the door and hooray! It opens. Everyone thanks me. Champagne is popped. The children lay roses at my feet for the victory parade.

So anyway I left the pieces of the door that I removed all in one pile with a sticky note for the maintenance guy (once he decided to show up) that says “Did your job for you this time. – The Residents”

Why? Because I’m that bitch, with a PhD in Knobology.

–Mike