I Deserve A Medal

There is an old saying about choosing your battles wisely. I can't do that. I must have a finger in every battle. And at the Mansion, there are OH SO MANY battles, and OH SO LITTLE time. I stopped Fiddler H from fiddling with the thermostat last night.

I also informed Naysayer H that the back door was not working properly. That's the kitchen door. The one we use most often, because the front door has issues. The issues revolve around the doorknob, which won't revolve. Sometimes you can get it to work effortlessly, and other times you have to twist and rattle and fiddle with the turny-locky thingy. I think it was originally damaged by the boys several summers ago, when they had a fondness for luring each other out onto the porch, then running around and re-entering and locking the other one out. Great fun on a summer day at the Mansion! A day when driving his standard-shift Toyota around the grounds was not enough entertainment for the then-10-year-old #1 son.

When we got home from the basketball game last night, I sent #1 to the door with the key. Usually, it is The Pony's job to unlock, but he had stayed at Grandma's house through the game, and Chauffeur H was sent to collect him. #1 reported that the door would not open. I thought he was pranking me, because I had stated that he should run unlock the door, because I was headed to the bathroom as soon as I got my stuff out of the back of T-Hoe. But no. It was not a prank. The door would not open. I told him it was so simple that even The Pony could do it. Shaming didn't work. I grabbed the key, in the midst of a little jig that I sometimes burst into when the wind chill is -10 and I have been sitting at a basketball game for two hours and drive 30 minutes home without thinking first to use the facilities. The key turned like normal, but the doorknob wouldn't. #1 was dispatched to the front door to gain entrance and let me in. That plan worked.

As soon as Chauffeur H arrived home, he was informed of the incident. He turned the doorknob in question. "It works." He was hearing none of what we were saying. That we could not get in that door. That #1 had to get in another way, none too reliable, and open it from inside. Do you think Handyman H made plans to fix the door? You know him well. Of course he didn't. Because in his mind, that door worked, and we were crazy or making it up.

Tonight, Layabout H was home when we got here around 6:00. It had just begun to snow. Darn that Global Warming! We got in, because the door had already been unlocked by Layabout H. But #1 could not get the door to close. The doorknob turned, but the metal thingy would not move. Manager of Facility Maintenance H fiddled and faddled with it. The temperature was a balmy 27 degrees. After 15 minutes of faddling, MoFMH took a hammer to the door. That was after he had taken out the whole doorknob assembly. So there was a gaping hole in the door, and MoFMH was banging on something near the hole with a hammer. A cat wandered through the kitchen. MoFMH denied letting in the cat. I guess when the door is standing open, it is free admission for pets.

MoFMH declared that somebody must have tried to break in. What other reason could a doorknob that he had installed 11 years ago possibly have for going bad? He stuffed a shop towel into the gaping hole, and decreed that though the deadbolt would not work from outside with a key, it could be used to hold the door closed. Like a thief could not possible push out the shop towel and reach in and turn the bolt. The same thief that could not get in today, who might come back tomorrow.

Furthermore, in the midst of this explanation, MoFMH rationalized that Steve at work had somehow gotten locked inside his office today by a bad doorknob, and MoFMH was called to deal with the problem. To which I replied, "Is Steve still locked in?" Because this little task was taking an awful lot of time with no end in sight, and the kitchen was getting colder and colder, and DARN if that wasn't making our furnace run continuously, which is apparently something that furnace-manufacturers don't take into consideration, a furnace running continuously during the winter, so they include a setting for Emergency Heat. But I digress. MoFMH assured me that Steve was out, because they used a saw to remove the lock. Lucky for us, a hammer could do our job.

Anyhoo...MoFMH said he was going to Lowe's for a lock. The Lowe's that is 20 miles away. Not the Lowe's that he passed on the way home from work, after being told last night that the doorknob was not working.

I told him to get TWO, by cracky! TWO doorknob assembly doodads. Because the one at the front door was on its last legs, and might go bad tomorrow.

Winning these battles is mighty hard work.