More misadventures and piteous o'erthrows

Upon returning from Verona, I was about ready to fall off my feet. So instead of going out clubbing as per my original plan, I decided to play it nice 'n easy this Saturday night and just go to a cafe with some friends. Anne, my roommate with whom I had gone to Verona, was with me, but she and a bunch of other decided to split early. So the three of us who were left found a small bar that was still open, split a bottle of 18 euro very nice wine and headed home around 1 am.

At about 1:45 I arrive at my door. Here's what you have to understand about our door. There are two locks on it; one locks the actual knob, the other locks this bolt for which we do not have the key. In fact, Laura, our Italian roommate, even told us, do not touch the bolt. Under any circumstances.

So I arrive at about 1:45 at my door. I put in the key in the lock. I turn the knob.

The door does not budge.

I try again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And....my hands are starting to bruise.

I pound, I scream, I ring, I buzz. I know Anne is inside and asleep. How she can sleep through the ruckus I'm making I haven't the faintest, but currently, she is.

I start looking around for some way out of this. By now it's about 3 am and I'm so incredibly sure that the neighbors hate me (these walls aren't exactly soundproof). I go back outside, trying to see if there's a way I can climb up onto out balcony that faces the street. There isn't. I start looking around for a night warden, someone or something to help me. Nada.

I continue to pound on the door, but it remains impassive, it's one-way eye staring at me. So close, yet so far.

"I cannot do this," I tell myself. "I am not about to let myself fall asleep on the doormat."

I fall asleep on the door mat. Which is extremely uncomfortable. As I fall asleep I realize that this is what being homeless is like, and I felt so incredibly grateful that I don't sleep like this every night. Cause there are people who do. There are people who know no other.

Around 5 am Kazarae comes home, slightly not sober. I wake up and wish her luck opening the door. Pretty soon we're both at it, pounding the door, ringing the bell, shouting. I keep running outside to look at the situation from another angle, cause I just know, I know, there's gotta be a way out of this.

6 am. Nothing. I wonder for the 20th time if Anne is actually there. What if she got hurt on the way home? But no, there's no way, cause the bolt can only be locked from the inside, so she has to be in there. Why hasn't she woken up? How can she possibly be sleeping through this incredible ruckus we're making??
Kazarae starts calling people. Because, of course, as Murphy's law is in full swing here, she's the only one between us who has a cell, it's running out of batteries fast, and she doesn't have Anne's number. We call her friend Andrea, who's roommates with Rachel, who we know has Anne's number. No one picks up. We call Walter, the head of Student Services at IES. He says "I don't know. It'd be useless to call the police. They won't be able to do anything. Just keep knocking and ringing, and try not to wake up the neighbors." We call Laura, our Italian roommate who was out of town for the weekend. She's a bit more sympathetic, but still offers no knew advice.

7 am. I fall asleep on the stairs, my scarf cushioning my head. Kazarae curls up on the doormat. We both look incredibly bedraggled and defeated. I keep having dreams about doors magically opening to me. I can see the other side of the door, the inside of the apartment...then I wake up.

8 am. Anne should be waking up by now, as she said she almost always wakes up between 8 and 8:30. Both Kazarae and I are beginning to get a little delirious. More than a little. We're starting to think that every little sound, every tiny squeak, is coming from inside the apartment. The whole world is there, and here we are, unable to do anything but sit and wait. There is nothing more frustrating, I promise you.

9 am. Still nothing. I look at my emergency card and see a number that I hadn't seen before. "Housing Emergency."
D'oh.
We call. Finally! A lifeline. Manuela tells us she's sending over another RA. We're not sure exactly what the RA will be able to do, but it's something, which is more than what's happened in the past 7+ hours. We recommence making a ruckus.

9:24. What....what??? WAS THAT A NOISE? OH MY GOD!
The door clicks, the bolt turns. Anne's tired face appears. "What's going on?"
Kazarae hugs me. All I can do is laugh. Just laugh. Out of desperation, out of exhaustion, relief, disbelief that I just spent 7.5 hours locked out of my own house, sleeping on the stairs,I don't know. I'm so maniaically far gone.

Kazarae and I had been so determined to be incredibly pissed off at Anne, but when I finally saw her blessed, blessed face I just couldn't. Turns out, as she was the only one home at the time when she came back, coupled by the fact that a creepy guy had just stalked her all the way home out of the Metro stop and to the apartment, she decided to lock herself in. This in itself is not a bad thing, except that, in a moment of mental abstraction, she threw the bolt instead of locking the knob. She then proceeded to put in earplugs so that she could actually get some sleep, as she had not slept well the proceeding nights.

We've learned our lesson now. I'm going to talk to Manuela tomorrow about either removing the bolt or finding new keys for it. And we all have each others numbers.

At some point during the night, I had the very weird thought that this must be what giving birth is like, 'cept without the blood and screaming. But, more just because it's an incredibly painful psychological struggle (and somewhat physical; Have you ever tried sleeping on a set of cold stone stairs?) that lasts for hours and hours. You can see no clear end in sight, you're doing all you can to get it over with, yet really all you can do is just wait for it to happen by itself. And you know there's going to be a fantasticly beautful reward at the end of it.