The Great Escape

I have never had dainty-little-pretty-girly hands, much to my life-long dismay. But one accepts these things and moves on, knowing and embracing one's flaws and even learning to appreciate the ability to open jars easier than most.

Like my mother's before me, my knuckles are larger than they should be, my fingers blunt and squared and the reach between my pinkie and thumb longer than average. As a child, I was told by my piano teacher that I had ideal hands for playing the piano, which pleased me to no end, though it did not quite please me enough to practice the piano often and thus my career as a pianist was cut short.

When the subject of hands arises, which it tends to occasionally, I generally make a joke of it and tell people I have man-hands (thank you Seinfeld for the reference). People assume I am just being self deprecating and pshaw the whole notion, and since I rarely have a lobster nearby to crack open and demonstrate, we drop the topic and move on.

But recently my great big mitts took matters into their own hands, so to speak. While visiting friends in their lovely family home in Istanbul I used the facilities and upon attempting to make my exit, broke the key off in the lock.

Let's recap...

I was in a beautiful house staying with a family I had just met AND I BROKE THE KEY OFF IN THE BATHROOM DOOR LOCK.

oh. my. god.

After two minutes of deep breathing to quell my rising panic I heard the Hub and our host speaking in the hallway. "Chriiiiis?" I warbled "Something terrible has happened." Praying that he would come to the door alone and solve the problem before anyone caught wind of my misadventure. Do you think that happened?

No. It did not.

The entire household got involved, all other activities stopped, suggestions were made and discarded, various methods were tried and rejected, and many instructions were called to me through the door. I was apologizing and they were apologizing and everyone had a story to tell about how they had once gotten locked in a bathroom.

It was a group effort. First we managed to get the broken key out of the lock.

Here I am putting a brave face on it through the keyhole.

Here is the McGyver-like lineup of tools I had with me "inside" that I used to affect my breakout.

And so there was pushing and pulling, turning and twisting and some screwing and unscrewing...but we managed it with little-to-no damage and I was set free. After which I promptly expired due to extreme mortification.


-k.

p.s. anyone in the mood for lobster?