...in which I've got some new eccentricities! Stand back!
My doorknob is broken. I have only one door, and now it doesn’t work.
This door has been trouble for a long time. When I first moved into this apartment, the door was really nice. It opened and closed so smoothly, and the lock slid into the jamb so gently and easily, that at first I had to always try to get back in several times to convince myself that it was really locked.
Then, a couple of months after I moved in, the landlord had some guys over to work on the eaves or something. I remember trying to sleep through their hammering and sanding and cutting right above my window early one morning, and when they left, the door was stuck, and it sticks still. In cold weather it sticks so badly sometimes that it requires all my strength to open it, and Amy and Mama can’t open it at all. And to lock it, I have to slam it shut and then pull on the knob with all my weight while turning the key to shoot the bolt.
Doorknobs are wonderful and fascinating inventions, but they aren’t made to take that kind of punishment. So, a couple of weeks ago I was doing that, and the outside knob just came off in my hand. For a moment I stood there looking at it, a little stunned, and kind of at a loss as to how I was gonna lock my door so I could go to work. It was a sticky problem.
But I am a resourceful man, and I came up with a solution. I went back inside and got my cloth shopping bag. I had just bought a new pair of sandals the day before and hadn’t thrown the old ones out yet, so I put them into the bag. I set the bag on the floor inside the door and slipped the handles on the bag underneath the door. When I pulled, the sandals caught on the door, and so when I yanked the handles the door slammed shut enough for me to lock it.
I then replaced the doorknob, but as I was walking away I realized that it was obvious to anyone looking at my door that the knob was just kinda hanging there. Now, I live on a direct line between the bars on Fourth Avenue and the frat houses on Fifth Avenue. I could imagine drunks passing by, using my little alley as a shortcut back to Frat Row, and noticing the loose knob, and thinking it would be a fun prank to take it. And without the knob I couldn’t get back into my apartment. The jamb is damaged enough that, from the inside, I can work the mechanism with a butter knife, but from outside the knob is absolutely required. It might not seem likely that someone would steal it, but I really couldn’t afford to take the chance. So I took the knob back off and stuffed it into my bookbag. Now, whenever I leave my apartment, I automatically take the doorknob with me. When I get home, I pull on the handles of the bag, unlock the door, and then insert the doorknob back into the hole to work the mechanism that opens the door. It’s time-consuming, and when I’ve been drinking it’s an excessively challenging test of my intelligence and coordination, but it works well enough.
* * * * * * *
Now, this next bit is gonna seem kind of tangential, but trust me, it’ll all tie back together.
With my tax refund this year, I bought myself one of those fancy-ass digital Walkman things. I love it very much. It’s tiny and purple and beautiful, and it carries a thousand songs or so. And when I got the truck, I bought one of those things for it, that plugs into your cigarette lighter and transmits the music from the Walkman to your car stereo. This is great, ‘cause it’s easier to truck a Walkman around than a bunch of CDs, and anyway the CD player in the truck doesn’t work properly.
Problem is, the radio doesn’t work all that well, either. I mean, it does; it has good speakers and a fine sound, but sometimes it just spontaneously shuts itself off. This is a bit of a problem, ‘cause the button that turns it back on is missing. Where the button used to be is a hole, and inside the hole is the little trigger that the button is supposed to push, but the hole is too small to get my fingers into. So I always have to have something straight and slender to stick into the hole, to turn the radio back on when it shuts off.
The doorknob that I carry with me has the shaft attached to it that works the mechanism that actually opens the door. And it turns out that that shaft is just the right size to slip into the hole to turn the radio back on. So I drive down the street listening to music, and suddenly the music stops, and I just stick the doorknob into the radio and presto! The music is back!
So, to recap, I now open my door with a butter knife, close it with a bag of sandals, and use a doorknob to make my car stereo work. This should be irritating, but I have come to find it pleasing, even beautiful, over the past couple of weeks. I have added some new eccentricities to a life already featuring an impressive list of them, and nothing makes me happier than that.