the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I'm back in Izmir, and there's no time like the now to be an idiot. But first, let me say that it's a breathtaking morning, even through the giant dollop of bird poop on my window.

The thing is, I can't work out how the bird did it. Here's the outside of that window:

Not only is there nowhere to perch, but there's an overhang. The bird would need little suckers on his feet to attach himself to my window to do that, wouldn't he? Fly-by explosive diarrhea? He must have landed on my balcony in trembling, sweaty exhaustion, considering the output. Questions like this keep me up at night.

Anyhow. Today, I have a maid, thanks to Bahar, the carpet lady and my friend, who arranged for her to come clean my apartment. She speaks almost no English, except for "please" and "no problem," which doesn't help us any since I know those in Turkish. She arrived, via taksi, at 9am. I rang her in and unlocked my front door. I heard her going upstairs, so I stepped out to catch her and bring her back downstairs. In less than five seconds, a gust of wind pushed my door shut.

Boom.

In America, this isn't a problem, right? You open the door and go back in. Nothing is that easy here.

I'm learning that pictures are useful (and appeal to men and children more than words, which might broaden my reading audience into the double digits), so here's my door from the outside:

You see that doorknob? It's there to help you pull the door shut behind you. It does nothing else. When the latch is thrown, you must have a key to turn it to let yourself back in. But wait. It gets better.

The door is three inches thick and steel reinforced. You see those two locks there on the left? Yeah. Check this out:

And just in case you're wondering how far those rods come out when it's properly locked:

Pretty awe-inspiring, huh? Fort Knox called me the other day to see if they could use my place as a backup in case they were ever raided.

Well, in this case, the locks were not thrown, but the door was just as thick and solid and shut, and I was on the wrong side. My first reaction was denial. That did not just happen. I think I said it out loud.

OK. I'm a problem solver. There is no problem I cannot, after many tangents and wasted time and money, eventually solve. So I stood there, braless and barefoot, and thought. I had no phone, no cash, and not enough Turkish to reliably order food (not that that was an issue at the moment). By this time, the maid had found her way to the top of the building, realized I wasn't up there, and descended back to my landing. I pointed at the door and mimed "phone."

She called Bahar, and I asked Bahar to call Selma who had a spare key to my place. I was proud of myself for thinking of this before I allowed myself to panic properly. The maid went down the street and bought some Turkish breakfast food and returned. As we sat there waiting for Selma to arrive with the key, the maid would look at me and laugh, then say, "No problem."

Right. Breathe in and out. No other options.

So we sat out there on the curb appreciating the cool of the morning, relaxing. I kept trying to imagine how I might get up to my balcony, because my balcony doors were open (hence the breeze that closed the door in the first place). Before Bahar showed up, I had a realization: The key wouldn't work.

This is a lesson I learned Saturday morning when I forgot how to pull my keys out.* You're probably all sitting there saying, "What? And by what, I mean...what?!" How does one forget how to pull one's keys out of the lock? A frontal lobotomy wouldn't do that to most people, I realize. How hard can it be?

* This is the truly dumbass move, but notice how I subtly buried it in a larger rambling narrative so you wouldn't notice.

Well...there's a trick. You have to turn keys to the proper angle to release the key, and the angles I've grown accustomed to are vertical. Seriously. The whole civilized world pulls their keys out then they're up and down, right? Turkey does it when they're flat. No wonder no one will let them into the European Union.

When I couldn't get my key out, I got a spare, thinking I'd just lock it from the outside and get a locksmith after the weekend. Thankfully, I checked to see if it would work before I closed the door. Turns out, if there's a key in the lock on both sides, the lock cannot be moved. At this point, I had called the housing office to tell them my locks seemed to be stuck. I couldn't get my keys out. Housing called a locksmith, who appeared, turned the keys 90 degrees, removed them, and handed them to me. I paid the guy the embarrassment fee and he left.

So this morning, as we awaited the key, I realized it wasn't going to work. Note that my pics of the door have keys dangling from the locks on the inside. Yeah.

Selma arove with the key, and we went and tried it anyway. Why not? We had nothing else to do. It didn't work, of course.

The maid spoke with a man across the street who drove off and found a locksmith, who tried the credit card trick, which didn't work. (I mean, look at the construction of that door!) How did he get in? He learned I had the key, inserted it, bumped it couple of times with his pliers, and turned it. These lessons cost me 50TL.

The maid didn't arrive with any cleaning supplies, by the way. I thought she'd bring her own, because I don't have any to speak of. I handed her 100TL and she took a taksi, bought what she needed, gave me the change, and is now cleaning the house.

I'm running out of TL, but at least I'll have a clean house soon.

And It's true what they say: If you think education is expensive, try being a dumbass.

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