If it ain't broke, don't fix it. . .

. . .but if it is broke, get it fixed immediately.

I discovered the other morning that the lock on my apartment door wasn't functioning quite right. It's just a push-lock and even when I twisted the handle from the inside to unlock it, the outside was staying locked. "eh whatever" I thought to myself and wasn't in any rush to get it fixed since I could still get in with my key. Anytime I'm leaving my room I have my keys with me anyway so there wasn't any harm in my door locking automatically. That was until I left the room without my keys.

A couple nights ago a few people from our crew and I were talking about heading out for the evening. Being the cool person that I am, I was already showered and in my pjs at 7:30, ready to call it a night. But I hung around to see if anything sounded exciting enough for me to change back into my clothes and leave. I stood in my doorway weighing the pros and cons and without even realizing it, I had made my way out into the middle of the hall. And that's when a blast of wind shot through my room and slammed my door shut. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I immediately got that frustrated feeling, knowing my keys were just sitting on the bed, just the slim wooden door between us, and the only thing preventing me from getting in there was some stupid push-lock. (same feeling I've gotten about 800 times when I've locked my keys in the car).

Alright. No problem. I'll just head down and get our doorman to unlock it for me, seeing as there is a spare set of keys in the office. But no. The doorman, Robert (pronounced Lobert since the Thai's have trouble saying their R's) doesn't have the keys to the office. Lobert doesn't speak much English but by pointing to his watch and making a couple other hand gestures, he made it clear that at 11pm someone would be back and could let me in then. Great.

I hang out in J's room for awhile and at about 10:30 Lobert calls her room, says "door open" and hangs up. Yahoo! I peak out in the hall, see that my door is still closed and locked, so I head back down to the lobby to see what is going on. More hand gestures and maybe a word or two of English and Lobert informs me that someone is driving here now. He points to his watch and signifies 15 minutes. An hour and a half later I'm still sitting outside the building door, in my nightgown, with Lobert telling me "maybe 5 minutes" about every 20 minutes or so. He is a very hopeful man. But once midnight hits, he looks at me and says "no". Lobert has given up on the idea that this mystery person is coming. And when Lobert gives up you know it's over. He points at the 7 at his watch, meaning at 7 in the morning someone else will be here. This is around the time we usually leave for work. Great again.

J had said that if something doesn't work out to just come back up to her room and sleep there. But that was an hour and a half earlier. So when I come pounding on her door to wake her up, she assumes that it's some scary man outside her door and stays huddled in her bed texting "Can you see if there is someone outside my door" to my phone, which is stuck in my room. Luckily our friends Aoife and Gavin have the room right next door and knew the whole situation so Aoife pokes her head out and says to come crash in their room. Being the hospitable Irish lad and lass that they are, Aoife grabs an extra blanket for me while Gavin "insists!" that I sleep on the bed and he sleeps on their mats on the floor. I'm lucky they were up because otherwise I would have been sleeping in the hall.

I had a pretty restless sleep but at 7am I made my way downstairs and in perfect "Thai Time" the office assistant was there at 7:30. I sped upstairs, showered and changed, and made it to school on time (thanks to our new bicycles that we bought! Mine's red. With a basket. I'll add pics of it later.) The day was definitely a long one.

But lesson learned. . . even if you don't need something to be fixed right away, there's a good chance you'll find yourself in a bind eventually so get it fixed immediately. . .then again, my lock is currently still broken. But whatever, I bring my keys with me whenever I leave the room anyway:)