Locked in

We stayed with the McCallisters while we were getting settled in Cairo, and now we’re paying back the favor. Jaehee and Aden are staying with us while they are getting settled.

Rachel loves Jaehee. She calls her “Juh."

This morning the Relief Society met for breakfast at Lucille’s (that’s a restaurant, by the way, not one of the sisters). That meant that Jaehee and I got up early to get ready to go, letting our husbands sleep in.

Jaehee got up the earliest of all of us. My plan was to roll out of bed, get dressed, and go. Jaehee took a shower. Now that’s dedication.

I woke up about 10 minutes before my alarm clock went off to the sound of someone knocking at a door. I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from.

At first I thought it was Rachel. She will get out of bed sometimes and knock on her door to let us know that she’s awake and wants to come out. But, seriously, she had gone to bed so late that she should still be sleeping. And the knocking was pretty loud.

“Perhaps it’s the front door,” I thought as I rolled out of bed and stumbled sleepily out of my room.

But it wasn’t the front door. It was coming from inside our apartment. I quickly surveyed the scene, which was difficult in the dusky morning light without my glasses on, and noticed that the bathroom door was closed and the light was on.

Uh-oh.

I heard the knocking again. It was coming from behind the bathroom door.

“Jaehee?” I asked.

“I just closed the door!” she said, “And now I can’t open it!”

“The handle fell off on this side,” I said.

It was inevitably going to happen sometime. Our bathroom door is even trashier than our front door, which is warped so badly it belongs in an M.C. Escher drawing. It just should not be able to swing open or closed.

The bathroom door isn’t warped, but the handle is…not connected, apparently.

Jaehee and I did our best to get the door open, but we failed, so I went to wake up Andrew.

“The handle fell off the bathroom door,” I said after I had woken him up sufficiently to be a little coherent.

“Good,” he mumbled.

“No, not good. I can’t get the door open.”

“I’ll fix it later.”

“Jaehee is inside.”

After a series of moans and dramatic tosses, Andrew got out of bed.

He tried putting the handle back on. He tried turning the inside workings of the knob with pliers. Finally he just slammed the door with his shoulder a couple of times and it popped open.

Brute strength and brains? I married well.

“Sorry to wake you,” said Jaehee, “But I couldn’t really do anything besides knock.”

Andrew mumbled something about going back to bed and was back asleep within 5 minutes. I got out the duct tape and taped the latch inside the door so that it could be closed all the way without ever latching. Hopefully Jaehee will be the only one lucky enough to spend the morning locked in our bathroom.

Just another normal day in Cairo, what can I say?