Locked in!

Last night we discovered a "feature" of the new house in a rather unfortunate way. We decided to hang out on the back deck, which is accessible via the Safari Room, formerly a child's bedroom. Because we'd just gotten the air conditioner (thoughtfully left by the previous tenants) installed in the upstairs hallway window, we closed the Safari Room door to keep the cool air flowing into the master bedroom. When we wanted to go back downstairs, we discovered we'd been locked in!

The bedroom door, as it turns out, had a lock on the outside, presumably to keep Junior from wandering out in the middle of the night and falling down the stairs. But it's a very loose lock, activated by pushing a button in ... which is easy enough to do by accident when turning the knob.

Shit! What now? We had a phone, and thought about calling friends, but then I remember seeing the neighbors' lights go out just a little while before. Their bedroom is right next to the deck. "Katie! Sarah!" I yelled over. "Yes? What?" they responded. "We're locked in!" Much laughter ensued, and they agreed to come over and get the spare key out of the garage happily unlocked). But just then my handy companion managed to pick the lock from the inside (it has a safety feature ... a little hole you can push a wire into to open the lock).

Here you see the handle being changed so the lock is now on the inside of the room, and I may wrap some string around the locky thingy so it doesn't push in.