i can't get out

This morning I woke up with two errands I wanted to complete before catching the 9:08 or 9:18AM train: move car to other side of the street, pay library fine.

I was on track to get everything done when I walked to my door to open it. Weird, Overnight Guest must've locked the deadbolt. I told her I never lock it. I'll just unlock it and let myself out. Wrong. The door was unlocked. It just refused to open. Why am I locked in my apartment?

After fiddling with the door many times, I realized that my action of turning the knob did nothing. I wasn't terrified of being locked inside my apartment as much as I was of realizing that the only way out was through the fire escape. I have an unhealthy and unsubstantiated fear of fire escapes. The thought of one giving away as I step onto it, or me losing my balance and dying on the street frequents my mind. I didn't think I was panicking until I realized that by the time this thought had left my mind I was sweating.

I started banging on all of my walls to get any neighbors' attention. I didn't want to alarm my neighbors so much that they'd ignore it and pretend to hear nothing. So I moved around my apartment and would start to bang on a wall then stop. Move to another wall. Back to my door. Finally, next door neighbor came out to find out what was going on. She was kind enough to try to synchronize turning the knob with me, though that didn't work. She offered to call the police, which I opposed for many reasons I won't get into. Finally, she went downstairs to tell those neighbors to expect me coming into their apartments through their window.

I didn't look down and after I realized that I had reached down one flight without dying, my fear of fire escapes started to disappear. However, the 2nd floor neighbors were not answering my knocks on the window so now I had to climb down yet another flight of fire escape stairs.

The first floor neighbor, who was half asleep and answered in his boxers and only his boxers, did not seem alarmed as he walked from the kitchen window to the door to let me out. I had to squeeze in through the window, which he made no motion to open wider when I told him I needed to get in. I got stuck going through, so with half my body dangling by his sink I maneuvered a motion that would allow me to open the window wider (I had to climb up awkwardly into it) without dropping my car keys or tote.

I did not make the 9:18AM train.

Ironically, look at what happened to me almost exactly a year ago!