I know this because they came to my rescue yesterday. For those of you who do not live in Indiana (since the Dope is a pretty intelligent message board, i’d wager that’s the majority), Carmel is a town on the north side of Indianapolis which is famous for being rich and somewhat snobby. To what extent the snobby part is true I don’t know, but they are freaking rich. Expensive cars all over the place.
Anyway, I went with my girlfriend’s family to the shopping district of Carmel just to hang around, walk around, and enjoy the wonderful day. Sometime around one, we decided to go to the local Starbucks for refreshments and a restroom break. As was every Starbucks that i’ve been to, the restroom facilities were one person only and both the males and the females in our party had to wait in line. I was the last one to enter the restroom.
I did my business and proceeded to the door. As the lock was the push-button kind which automatically unlocked once the door was pulled from the inside, I just pulled the handle down, heard a click as the button came out, and pulled. The door didn’t budge. I pulled again. No joy. I started shaking the doorknob up and down and rattling the door. Still no luck. I took out my cell phone and called my girlfriend. She didn’t answer and I realized that she probably hadn’t taken her phone off of silent mode from school the previous day (my realization was later proven correct). Half a minute later, my girlfriend jokingly called from the outside, “Are you stuck?” “Looks like it, I replied.”
After a bit of banter, I managed to convey to her that I was indeed stuck in the restroom. She called her mother, who called her father, who told me to climb over the stall door. Once I conveyed to him the nature of my situation, they called the manager, who promptly told me to just swing the handle down and pull. I told her that the idea had previously occurred to me.
The manager then called the local security guy who looked like he was in his early 20’s. At first he wanted to slide me a screwdriver under the door so that I could break the hinges and take the door off, but then he radioed his headquarters and found out that he had no authority to break property. Security was obviously effective there.
So, the fire department was called in. Inside the bathroom, I waited. I politely requested that nobody in the establishment start any fires for the duration of my entrapment. I observed that the walls were the exact same shade of turquoise as my shirt. I told my girlfriend’s mom that I was quite alright and that I had spent more time in the bathroom after eating at the local Mexican establishment. This banter continued for about 20 minutes, bringing my bathroom total up to thirty.
Suddenly, a rough, deep voice asked me to try to get out. I did so with no success. The voice then told me to stand back. Suddenly, the restroom echoed with an extraordinarily loud “bang.” The door didn’t even shiver. This was repeated for about three minutes. Inside, I thought to myself, “Man, when I (BANG) buy a house, I (BANG) want a (BANG) door like this one (BANG) so I’ll (BANG) know that nobody can (BANG) break in.” (BANG). I was quite impressed with the worksmanship. Unbeknowst to me at the time, the firemen on the other side shared my exact same sentiments. At the end of the banging, the door had only just started to budge and I heard another voice say “Hey boys, don’t be afraid to break out the axe.”
And break out the axe they did. The restroom was filled with eardrum-shattering banging and I made sure to stay as far away from the door as possible lest they get too excited with the axe. After another two minutes of banging, the firemen finally started making progress but through no fault of the door. Instead, the frame around the door in which the deadbolt had been stuck started ripping off the wall. Finally, after another thirty seconds, the door exploded inward along with chunks of the frame and three Paul Bunyan-esque figures wearing CFD T-shirts entered. We shook hands and exchanged friendly greetings.
Upon my exit, the biggest of the firemen, who probably stood about 6’4" and had a chest resembling that of an adolescent rhinoceros, pointed to a sign which was taped on the stalwart door. It said something to the effect of “Please do not use this restroom for obvious reasons. The ladies room is good enough for your purposes.” I spent about 10 seconds peering closely at this sign, wondering what significance it had to me, before my girlfriend’s mom explained to him that the sign was taped there while I was stuck inside. It had not occured to me that I was being scolded 5 seconds after my exit. My attention quickly focused on the mocha that the manager gave me for free, the firemen left, and we resumed our weekend outing with much laughter and general good feelings. It was a good day.
Mundane? Kinda. Pointless. Check. Interesting experience? Definitely.
