I Think My Bathroom Is Trying to Destroy Me

Hey, Friends.

Did you have a good day yesterday? Good, good.

I did, too.  In fact it was quite lovely until last night. I made the mistake of thinking a nice, relaxing shower before going to bed was just what I needed.

I was so, so wrong.

I'm pretty sure my bathroom is trying to destroy me.  I won't go so far as to call it the Vortex of Doom, but it's pretty close.

Let's examine the evidence, shall we?  Awesome.

First, it was the middle of the night repair job. Not fun, but I managed to handle it.  Still a bit proud of my latent plumbing skills on that one.

Then it was the sizzling sink.  I maintain that the sink should never make noises like that.

Then it was the spiders.  The giant, creepy, ninja-spiders that will totally show up as an unwanted guest when you are in the shower.  I really hate spiders.  I cannot stress that enough. And yes, I am still paranoid that another one will show up and try to attack me.

Last night the bathroom apparently decided that sleep deprivation would be a fun new twist to bring to its little torture game.  Why yes, I am talking about my bathroom as if it is a person.  I'm starting to believe that the room has a mind of it's own, and it is filled with evil intent.  It would explain why the previous owner of the house left a couple of rosaries hanging in the basement.

I wish I was kidding.  And yes, I left them right where they were.

So, I decided to take a nice, hot, relaxing shower last night before bed.  It seemed like a great idea. Just ease on into the work week on a good note.  Totally normal, right Friends?

The bathroom thought otherwise.  

I got out and was in my pjs, ready to toddle on off to bed, and I could not get the door to open. Apparently the bathroom decided that we had not spent enough quality time together that evening, and it wanted to prolong my stay a bit.

At first I thought maybe the door knob was just slippery, and maybe  I hadn't really turned it enough. I dried off the knob and gave it another try.  No dice.

What the heck?  This has never happened before.  The door doesn't even have a lock, so it's not like I accidentally locked myself in.

I tried giving it a harder tug.  Nothing.  It creaked, but that was about it.

What the heck is wrong with the door?!

Have I mentioned that I live alone, Friends?  Yeah.  There is no use even attempting to pound on the door and call for help.  Only the two cats would hear me, and of the two only Jazz-kitty would actually show any interest in the noise.  Unless she has gained some dazzling physical and mental prowess that has heretofore gone unnoticed -- she is not going to be much help.  

I decided that the door must have swollen up from the humidity in the bathroom.  That's the only thing I can come up with.  Maybe there was enough difference in the temperature and humidity between the bathroom and the rest of the house that it just stuck shut.

I couldn't call anyone.  For a start, my phone was not in the bathroom with me.  Kind of kills the whole idea right off the bat.  Even if it was, who the heck was I going to call?  My parents?  They are the only ones with a spare key to even get into my house.  It was literally midnight by this point. Even if I had my phone I wouldn't call them at that hour unless it was a dire emergency.

Do you know how long I was trapped in my bathroom, Friends?  A little over an hour.

Do you know how boring it is to be trapped in your bathroom?  No phone.  No music.  No way to entertain yourself.  Just you in a steamy bathroom, randomly tugging on a door and praying that this will be the time that it opens.  

Why not climb out the window?  That's an excellent thought, Friends.  It would at least have given the window in the shower a purpose. 

 **Side note: why the heck do they always put the window in the shower right next to the shower head?  I mean, I'm all for letting in the natural light, but does it really have to be placed right where you are going to be standing naked in the shower?  It could at least be at the other end to pretend that privacy exists. My window opens onto my driveway, and my neighbor's house is like 15 feet away. We don't need to know that much about each other.  Ever.**

I digress.  I had a lot of time to contemplate the mysteries of the universe, as you can imagine.  Back to the point: climbing out the window would be useless as the doors and windows were all locked, and I did not bring my house keys into the shower with me.  Silly me. I did contemplate just opening the window, but it was cold out and I didn't want to get sick.  Everyone at work is already getting sick, and I did not want to weaken my defenses against whatever plague-like germs they have been spreading around.

I did briefly toy with the idea of trying to unscrew the hinges using my nail file.  MacGyver would totally be able to pull that shit off.  Of course, he probably never would have been trapped in his bathroom to begin with.  I decided that was way too much effort for the middle of the night.

Finally, mercifully, the door opened. I may never latch it all the way again.  At the very least I may start bringing my phone in with me so that I have a source of amusement if I should be stuck again.

And that is why I think my bathroom is trying to destroy me.  Just when I think nothing else could possibly go wrong in there, it does.

Oh well.  Gave me time to go through all of my nail polish and weed out the old ones.  Maybe it also acted as a giant full-body steam treatment.  Silver lining, I guess.

This Might Be a Problem...

Well, there isn't really a might be -- it most definitely is a problem.

It's been a cold winter.  It's very cold now.  Just looking at my phone makes me want a cup of hot cocoa.

Feels like -20!  And to rub it in, an igloo picture.  Nice.

I've noticed that it feels cooler in my kitchen than the rest of the house.  I haven't really paid much attention to it.  I have an older home, and I don't think there are as many heat vents in that part of the house.  I figured it was one of the quirks of an older home.

Tonight, for whatever reason, I forgot to turn off the light on the back porch. Nothing major, but it led to a rather interesting discovery.

 I had been in the kitchen getting a drink.  I turned the kitchen light off on the way out of the room, and that was when I realized the porch light was on.  I started to cross the room to turn off the porch light, and I noticed that the back door looked a little odd.

I couldn't figure out exactly what it was a first, and then I realized that I was seeing light through cracks in the wood of the door.  Well, shit.  That can't be good.

To be fair, I think the door has always had these cracks since I bought the place, but they had been sealed.  I'm pretty sure the door is original to the house since all of the woodwork matches, so circa 1935.  I have never seen light shine through the door before.  I forget to turn the porch light off all of the time, so I would have noticed.  

I tried to get a picture of it, but it didn't turn out well enough to show the light in the cracks.  This is what the door looks like though:

See the cracks in the left panel?

So, I'm thinking that the now-open cracks are why it feels so much colder in the kitchen.  I'm guessing that the prolonged, very cold weather has made the wood contract and the cracks have widened. 

Now I'm going to be paranoid all night that the door is going to crack in half, or splinter.  What do you think will happen?  Imagine your own worst-case scenario, then assume it will probably go through my mind at some point tonight when I am trying to sleep.

Silver lining: it's so freaking cold that no one is going to be out tonight, so very little chance of a criminal randomly deciding to kick-in my already weakened back door to rob and/or axe-murder me.  (Yes, that is the way my brain works.  There wasn't a particularly high chance of either event happening in the first place, but it's even less thanks to the frigid weather.) 

On that happy note, I'm off to try and get some sleep. 

How many days until Spring arrives?