The Taped Door

The doorbell rang and a guy from housing maintenance stood on the other side of it.

“I’m here to replace your door,” he informed me.

He was here to replace this one:



As you may recall, we also have another broken door:



This one happened on purpose when I tried to be Jet Li and break open the knob when I couldn’t unlock it.

As you can see, that didn’t work out so well. The door wound up with a crack and I ended up with a throbbing foot and a bruise.

I had showed the housing maintenance worker that door when they had first dropped by a week before to see exactly what needed to be replaced. I didn’t bother to lie in explaining the crack.

“Yeah so my daughter had locked the door and I couldn’t get it open so I decided to use my karate moves to get it open. But it turns out I have no karate moves so…” and then I trailed off and tried to look sweet and innocent.

The worker had raised an eyebrow and was all, “KARATE moves?” in a shocked tone. Then he had scratched the side of his head as though he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. I suppose I may have been the first occupant in base housing who tried to kick a door in. “You know you’re going to have to pay for this?” he said. “Karate moves or not.” A smile was playing on the corner of his lips.

I nodded knowingly. “Right. I figured. I just wanted to report it.”

Then I had showed the guy the other broken door.

I swear, I had nothing to do with this one.

The kids were playing and I all of a sudden heard a thump. Then Natalie walked out with this piece:



She told me quite seriously, “Door broken.”

“Did you try and karate chop this one too?” the worker asked warily when I had showed him the hole.

I shook my head. “No sir!”

He peered at the door piece that I had handed over. “Is that…tape on the end? Did you try to tape it back on the door?”

My cheeks felt warm. “Well. I might have.”



I didn’t know what else to do! Tape was the first thing that came to mind! As it is, the tape did nothing and the piece just came right off again.

“Tape?” the worker repeated as though he couldn’t believe it. He was probably thinking, “Okay, first she karate kicks a door and then she tries to tape a piece back on. She’s clearly a nutter.”

I am NOT a nutter. I just…well, sometimes my imagination gets the better of me and I start to believe that I CAN be a karate master if I just put my mind to it. Or that tape will surely hold a piece together.

Thank goodness it was a different worker who came to replace the door. (And he only came to replace the door with the hole. They can’t replace the one upstairs because they were worried about damaging our stuff when they removed it.)

Of course when the worker came inside, Tom was emerging from the bathroom. He had been able to come home from lunch and as he walked out he didn’t see the worker. So he said (loudly), “Wow, that was my third crap of the day. I can’t believe it.” Then he noticed me standing there with the guy beside me who had a bewildered look on his face.

“Er Tom?” I said in an embarrassed squeak. “The guy from housing maintenance is here to replace the door.” I gestured towards the worker who had pinched in cheeks like he was trying hard not to laugh.

Tom coughed and went, “Oh. Hi there,” and quickly scurried into the kitchen. I imagine he was appalled.

I mean, I was appalled. I put myself in the worker’s position: suppose I had walked into a home and the owner had been discussing his number twos? This is why I’ve told Tom time and time again that I could care less about what goes on in the bathroom. But he doesn’t seem to comprehend this. Maybe now he will.

"So, um, I'll show you the broken door," I said, trying to pretend like Tom had never spoken at all.

The guy frowned when he saw the hole. "What happened here? And is that tape on the end of that piece?"

Okay, is it SO shocking that I tried to tape it back?

Note to self: never use tape to fix a piece of the door.