I am so glad I invested in a bathrobe.

About a week ago I very intelligently locked myself out of my apartment. There I was, nice and cozy in bed, very much asleep, when I heard my door'bell' BUZZZZ and bam, I was up, stumbling around, running into stuff. My poorly-formed, non-caffeinated thoughts went immediately to UPS and the fact that I've had NO luck in connecting with them so somewhere in my still-asleep brain I thought that maybe this was the UPS guy at 8am.

I run downstairs, blinking oddly [I'd fallen asleep with my contacts in], saw there was noone at the door, ran out onto the porch, and waved at a man getting back into his truck. Apparently it was some guy from the gas company looking to get into the basement, and since the 1st-floor neighbors weren't home, he decided to just go ahead and ring everyone else's buzzers. Because, y'know, that made perfect sense.

I then ended up apologizing to him, for not having magic basement access and for -I kid you not- my "haggard appearance." wtf? Who, besides the guy in the first 5 minutes of the animated Beauty and the Beast uses the phrase "haggard appearance"?

So I got back up to my door and yes, it's locked.

Upside to all of this is that I met my neighbors on my floor. They're pretty cool too, thank god. I used the girl's cell phone to call our landlady in-between crawling out her window onto the fire escape in an attempt to get into my apartment. Yes, there I was, on our fire escape in a nightdress and a bathrobe. I e-mailed Matt a 'GAH HELP I LOCKED MYSELF OUT OF MY APARTMENT' e-mail and then sat down on the couch with the aforementioned neighbor and harassed her furry cat while watching The Price is Right and Saved By the Bell. [Somehow the SBTB episode was one I'd seen before...and recalled disgustingly well...god help me]

Matt e-mails me back something along the lines of 'dummy, use a credit card or a butterknife to get back into your apartment.' Neighbor digs up an old credit card, I fiddle around with my door a minute, and VOILA! UNLOCKED! I jumped up and down and hugged her and was too busy doing a Yay I'm Back In My Apartment happydance to feel like too much of an idiot.


And then TODAY, I awoke at 2:30pm [yeah shut up, I don't know how I slept that late] to someone knocking on my door. Again, stumble around, run into crap, throw on bathrobe. I open the door and it's a dorky-looking man with long curly red hair and thick-rimmed rectangular glasses and workboots. [The plumber.] He apologizes for waking me up, and I don't feel like too much of an idiot until I turn my phone on and realize it's, yes, 2:30pm. While he's back outside grabbing stuff from his truck I throw on a shirt and sweatpants and go about making coffee. omgwtfbbq.


If I could offer one piece of advice to anyone and everyone, own a bathrobe. A nice one is a plus, because if you're anything like me a number of people will unexpectedly have the chance to see you in it, and you sure as hell don't want to look like a complete ragamuffin.


The Comcast guys will be here again tomorrow, and I vow that I will be wearing something other than a bathrobe when they show up.