i've got a knock-knock joke for you

will ferrell's "landlord" skit on youtube may exploit children, but it is pretty funny. with each day that passes, i wish more and more that pearl was my landlord. she may be 2 years old, but i often think that she has more sense than my landlord. since i moved in last summer, we've been lobbying for a new door for our apartment building. the old door was a push lock, so it was often left open by forgetful tenants or visitors.

one night, my roommate woke-up at 3am to sounds right outside our door. at first she assumed that it was a couple having a little fun before they headed into their own apartment. turns out it was a homeless man who passed out right in front of the door to our apartment - not the building door - our apartment door. it happened that she was the only one home, so she called on the cops, the landlord, and a giant butcher knife. all that divided her from the homeless guy was our thin door that we were also waiting on a replacement for.

somehow after that incident in october, he waited until two weeks ago to get our door fixed. (this was despite my roommates talking to him routinely about this.) the door replacement started mid-morning on a saturday. i knew we were in trouble when the carpenters left the door wide open that night since the job wasn't quite finished. as a solution, they turned off the lights in the foyer. (cause burglars are scared of the dark?) i should also note that i use the term 'carpenters' loosely. i haven't quite figured out if these guys are friends of my landlord, or just dudes who owe him favors. whatever the case, it's clear that the people that he 'hires' for handiwork should not be called professionals.

when the door was ready 2 days later the landlord dropped off keys for those who were home. instead of calling, emailing, texting, writing, he just stopped by your apartment and left them with whoever was home. this meant that 1/2 of our building was locked out when they came home for work in the afternoon. i was lucky enough to have a roommate who works from home so i didn't have any trouble, but the poor girl spent most of her workday letting people in and out of the building. (the new door wasn't hooked up to the buzzer system, so she had to get up and let everyone in.) it's quite obvious that the new door doesn't quite fit the framing, but it was an improvement from the old clubhouse door that we had prior.

i made it home from work tonight around 8:30. i had stopped at the store on my way home and picked up a few things to make for dinner. i sort of had to pee when i left work, but figured i could hold it until i made it home. the commute's close to 50 minutes, but once i had my jacket on i didn't want to have to take the time to do my business in manhattan. so here i am with a full bladder and my groceries. it's freezing and nearing 9pm. i put down my groceries in front of our building door to fish my keys out of my messenger bag. i try to turn my key in the door and nothing happens. it moves a little bit, but won't budge more than a cm each way. i jiggle the key around, try it three different ways, and count to three before moving on to a string of four-letter words. i try buzzing every one of the 6 apartments in our building but no one answers. i continue alternating buzzing doors with jiggling the lock for the next 15 minutes or so. finally i start calling my roommates. i assume no one is home (i've rang the bell now about 5 times), but don't see the harm in giving it a try. turns out one of my roommates was napping. she comes out and tries to let me in, but now the door won't budge from the inside. she's now stuck INSIDE the apartment. after playing with the lock for another few minutes, she tries to find another person in the building who may be able to help us out. no one's around, so she gives up and tries once again to let me in. (i REALLY have to pee now.) finally something in the door moves and she's able to open it. we call the landlord, who calls a locksmith, who claims he fixed the door. i haven't left my apartment since then and i fear the worst when i try to leave tomorrow morning. i've never tried to scale my backyard fence but tomorrow may be the day to do it. if i don't make it into work tomorrow, you'll know why.