Monday, October 11, 2010

Doorway Stupidity

My latest adventure in the field that my mother calls "Robbie stories" came to me in my bedroom doorway this past Sunday morning. Twice.

I had just gotten dressed for church. I was wearing a fairly new pair of black slacks, having recently upgraded the waist-down part of my wardrobe to fit my up-sized body. After putting on my belt, socks, shoes, and what have you, I gathered myself up to leave. But as I marched through the bedroom doorway--the wide-open doorway, mind you--I ran into an invisible barrier and bounced backward.

I didn't bounce very far, however. I found that I was caught in the midst of the threshold, unable to move forward or back.

What had happened was that one of my belt-loops had caught on the metal lip on one side of the door jamb, the bit that guides the door latch into its slot when you close the door. It seems my height, the fit of my trousers, the durability of their stitching, and the angle of my path through the door came together just right to make this happen.

Now I had to step around a basket that I use to prop the door open (to stop the cats pushing the door shut and trapping themselves in my room without food, water, or clay). So it isn't exactly that I had grown so fat that I couldn't get through my own doorway without getting snagged. But that isn't far from the truth, evidently. For this had never happened to me before yesterday morning. Yet, only ten minutes after this first-time blooper, when I had gone back into my bedroom to search for something I had missed, it happened again.

Both times, I had to struggle for an embarrassing, maddening moment to get free. Maddening, because the one time I can count on something I own to be well-made, it's when my belt-loop tries to hold me hostage. Embarrassing, because I can just see the tears of laughter running down my Mom's face if she could see me now...

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