I’ve never liked Yale-type locks, the type where it automatically locks when the door shuts. I’ve always done everything I can to have deadbolt locks on my front door for one reason: you can’t lock yourself out. In order to leave the house, you have to lock the door manually yourself. Thus, you can’t ever leave without your keys, and you can’t lock the door behind you.

The front door on my new flat has a deadbolt, as I prefer.

The balcony has a Yale-type lock.

I’m sure you can tell where this is going.

I was just adjusting my new bird feeder – they don’t seem to have mastered the art of getting seeds from the small slits at the side, but they do understand seed left out on the tray – and having finished I turned to leave… and the door was closed. And all I could see was a keyhole, for a key I’m pretty sure I don’t have.

The worst thing about locking yourself out is the dual whammy of “I can’t believe I’m so stupid!” and “What the hell am I going to do now?” You’re not particularly confident you’re going to be able to come up with a cunning plan if you’ve just done something unbelievably stupid.

Luckily, a guy named Dan saw my predicament from his window (I interrupted his dinner – sorry Dan, even though I know you don’t read this blog!) and offered to get a ladder, so I’d only be trapped outside my front door, instead of on my balcony. I managed to get to the ladder without actually falling to my death – it was surprisingly easy and unexciting, even though my clambering days are a ways behind me. Possibly because I refused to move from one position to another without a death grip on the balcony railing.

Having gained terra firma again, Dan, three neighbourhood kids and I accumulated around my flat’s front door to think of what to do next. I keep my keys in the door, on the inner side, but nobody’s arms were thin enough to get into the mailbox and grab the keys, not even the kids’. Reassuring from a security point of view, I suppose, but a bit annoying just then.

The next door neighbour’s girlfriend came out at that moment, which was lucky, as she was the one whose Gran was able to supply a wire coathanger. Unfortunately not a wire twisty one, but one welded together, but still useful. We delayed until one of the kids (whose name I didn’t get, so sorry, anonymous kid-who-doesn’t-read-my-blog) got some string to tie to the hanger so we didn’t lose that as well (he wasn’t sure how much to get, so got an entire huge roll!), and then Dan expertly manouevered the hangar, hooked the keys, and with many calls of “Don’t fa’! Don’t fa’!” brought them out! I haven’t been so happy to see keys in a great long while. It think the chain-mail keychain I got from Muffin and Agent Grey helped my keys hang on until they were extracted.

So that was my exciting adventure. I rewarded my stalwart companions with some cheap ice-creams I had on hand (well, two of the kids, anyway), and that was that.

So now whenever I go out on to the balcony, I’m going to make sure the snib is on, so the balcony door can’t lock behind me, and make sure it’s jammed open, and make sure I leave the window next to the door open so I can unlock it from there. And maybe make an emergency pack including shoes, phone numbers and a rope ladder is kept on the balcony at all times, just in case…