The damsel in distress: Ms. Maichael Mayans
The hero: temporarily unnamed custodial worker
The villain: my classroom door handle
I enjoyed my drive to the school, windows rolled down and the warm 80ยบ wind whipping through my hastily done up hair. Since I surprisingly didn't have any work today I had decided that I would dedicate the late morning to setting up my classroom. In anticipation for the task, I had already loaded my car with my classroom keys, reading books, writer's notebooks, cleaning supplies, my laptop, and a sack lunch. "Today," I thought, "I am ready for anything."
Or so I thought...
There were a few cars in the parking lot but I didn't run into anyone as I walked down the dimly lit hallway to my room. Keys in hand, I jiggled the door open and walked in, loving the thought that this room was to be my own personal kingdom for the next 11 months. The door closed quietly behind me and I began to organize the few things I had carried with me from the car. Well, that didn't take long, so I went over the door and pulled down the handle to make my way back to the car for another load.
The door didn't open. "Ok," I said to myself, "Don't panic. You probably just didn't pushed hard enough." Once again I pulled down the door handle and pushed against the door with all my might. Nope...still the door stood immovable, a stone-cold guard trapping me inside my own once beloved kingdom-- talk about damsel in distress! It was at about this point in time that the clammy feeling of fear, panic, and embarrassment began to engulf my body. What to do. What to do.
All I can say is this: thank the heavens for smart phones! Using my phone's internet, I found the number to the school and quickly called. Kaye, the principle, answered and asked how she could help me. "Um, this is rather embarrassing," I mumbled, "but I seem to have locked myself in my own classroom." She seemed confused at this since the doors didn't even lock from the inside, but mine had decided to have a personal vendetta against me and I was most certainly stuck inside. "Let me call custodial to unlock the door," she said and quickly hung up the phone. A minute later her voice came over the intercom, and she chuckled as she asked for a custodian to "go to room 218 because there [was] a teacher trapped in her classroom."
I tried to look cool, busy and unconcerned, when the custodian walked up and opened my door. "Are you sure you were locked in?" he asked in a skeptical voice.
"Yeah," I insisted. "The door handle didn't work at all."
He insisted I try it again, and once more the door closed softly between us. My mind raced with thoughts: "I swear, if this door opens right now while he is standing here, I am going to be so upset. I may not be a science nerd, but you shouldn't have to work at NASA to be able to understand how to open a door." Pushing the handle down and tugging at the door, I demonstrated that the door was indeed locked from the inside.
The custodian looked at me through the prison-sized window. "Pull the handle up," he said. And, of course, that was the trick. I was a free woman who now understood the sneakiness of my classroom door. Once my principal and vice principal arrived to make sure I was ok, we all got a good laugh from the experience. I wish I could say I am a teacher prepared for anything and everything, but after today's experience, I once again see how dependent I am on the aid of others to guide me and rescue me from my fatal blunders in the school world.
Door handle: 1
College graduate and teacher: 0
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