April 10th, 2003 - Thursday

Legs of steel, hear me roar

I had a very, ah, interesting day today. If by interesting you mean somewhat stressful, peppered with much crying.

Those of you who also read my weblog have already heard the story but it will be new to some of you.

It has been over four years since I've done any type of martial arts. However, apparently my kung fu is still strong.

Being a glorious day, I wanted to take the baby for a walk. We live on the 4th floor, no elevator, and the stroller is bulky for me to carry. Being unable to carry her and the stroller together, I put the baby in her crib and prepared to take the stroller down to the lobby where I would leave it until I returned with the baby to go for our walk. I picked the stroller up, locked the door handle, pulled the door closed, and as I heard the door click behind me I realized I had not brought my keys.

Panic ensues.

I threw my hip against the door three times, hard enough that I'm sure I'm bruised but it didn't open. I raced down the stairs to see if there was a big and burly handyman who could force it open. There was and he said he would check if they had the key. We were the ones who installed the door lock and we had never given them keys so I was sure they wouldn't have one that opened it. Tired of waiting, I ran back up and she was SCREAMING from her room. I peered down the stairs, didn't see the guy coming up and panic once again hit as I imagined ten thousand unlikely disasters.

So I stepped back a bit, turned sideways and delivered a rousing side kick to door right at lock level. And it flew open, sending splinters into the hallway, screws to the floor, and rendering the lock entirely useless. But hey, I was in.

The embarrassing part isn't that I locked my baby in the apartment. What was embarrassing was the guy showed up thirty seconds later and the key he had did indeed work in that lock. Oops.

Luckily the building manager is a mother too and understands Panicking Mama Syndrome and she convinced the owner to fix the lock without charging us for it.

So anyway, now I'm slowly calming myself down, especially since the baby was just fine. And though it turns out that I didn't actually need to kick the damn door down it's nice to know I still have enough kung fu power to help myself when the chips are down.

Needless to say, rather than go for a walk, I decided I'd be better off just opening the windows for fresh air. We're staying in today.

And well, this is what our front door looks like now.

Well, you know, when I was still doing kung fu, my roundhouse kicks were always the strongest - just ask the guy that I kicked in the head while sparring. But you can't do a roundhouse to a door and my side kicks were always pretty damn good too. Apparently they still are.

If you asked me to randomly kick open a door, I don't know if I'd have been able to do it, or at least not as easily. With adrenaline and fear for my daughter though, it took one kick and it was over. Although I'm still a little embarrassed by the whole thing - especially since she was fine and was only screaming because she was angry - I'm proud too. Maybe it was a little dramatic but I did what I felt I had to do at the time. C'est la vie.

And once George got home (and shook his head as he surveyed the damage), he brought the stroller down for me and Hayley and I were able to go for a nice walk after all.

I am now lusting over this house even though it's not even for sale.

There has been no drama since I got back from the walk, and that's a really good thing. In the meantime, I'm just glad that the dead bolt on the door still works - at least we can close and lock the door.

I wonder if I should rent myself out as a door busting service.