#111 In And Out The Window

Anne Morse Hambrock

Jun 02, 2025

You know that phrase – “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.”

Yes, well, I thought I had a plan for this past Sunday.

It involved some baking for a family birthday and a nice leisurely approach to the celebration of same.

It did not involve getting locked inside my own house.

(OK, partly locked inside my own house - I did, fortunately, have a functioning front door.)

Out of the blue, the back door became a giant and unyielding impediment to egress.

When the approximately one hundred year old full mortise door lock decided that seizing up, at a point where the latch engaged enough to frustratingly indicate movement, but not enough to fully retract to a point that would be useful for getting out of the house, might generate a pretty entertaining video that could be shared at one of those secret parties held by full mortise door locks when we are all asleep.

(By the way, I know it is called a “full mortise door lock” thanks to all the frantic googling of “how to fix an antique door that is stuck shut”. I didn’t add “with me on the other side of it” because that part didn’t seem like it was going to help.)

I’ll give the internet credit.

It is home to a LOT of videos detailing how to fix a full mortise door lock mechanism.

If the door is open.

And you can take the lock mechanism out of it.

When the door is firmly shut, not so much.

The best advice the mighty google could offer in such a circumstance was A) Take the door off at the hinges or B) Call a professional.

We tried “A”.

We whacked and whacked at that elderly, but confoundedly sturdy, door, watching in frustration as it moved off the hinge pins not one iota, until we remembered that there is a big metal plate somewhere inside the door frame that keeps you from being able to whack the door off at the hinge pins unless it is open.

Sigh.

We tried disassembling the doorknobs on both sides.

Not helpful.

Lightbulb.

“Perhaps, if I go outside with a thin metal shim thingy I can do that trick like burglars do with credit cards on the sloping side of the latch.”

I grab such an implement and trot out the front door and round to the back hopefully.

To find that the exterior side of our door is surrounded by a hardwood frame that is offset.

So unless I can get that shim to turn corners, this is plan is not working either.

I trudge, deflated, back inside.

Lightbulb.

“Perhaps I can fashion something to wrap around the latch from the inside and, again, try that credit card trick.”

A giant sturdy paper clip gets opened, inserted, wrapped around the latch and firmly twisted together to make a nice tool for this process.

Nope.

I give up.

“B” it is.

I resign myself to to calling a locksmith the next day.

Yes, the next day.

Because I am not going to pay Sunday overtime rates for what is pretty much an annoyance rather than an emergency.

In the meantime, we decide that the biggest problem with our partial imprisonment is that the two big dogs are going to need to go out to do their business.

More than once.

The sensible thing to do would be to leash them up, take them out the front door and round to the back.

(Yes, leash them up because we live on a very busy squirrel infested street and cannot take a chance that the dogs will just listen to us and stay safely away from potential car impacts if a squirrel chooses that exact moment to dash through traffic while calling them names.)

The flaw in this plan is that any time the dogs see their leashes they think they are going for a nice walk.

And get pretty excited about it.

Excited enough that I’m not looking forward to disappointing them four or five times over the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours.

One thing I have not mentioned, that becomes important at right about this point in the story, is that we have a big window between our kitchen and our back porch.

Usually, this window is a convenient pass-through for food and plates and such when we are entertaining on said porch.

Lightbulb.

“Perhaps I can take the dogs out on their leashes one time, get them to the back porch, put something sturdy, like an ottoman under the opening, and teach them to go in and out the kitchen window.”

Freeing me from the fear of random squirrel taunting.

All this to say that, yes, if you had been standing in my neighbor’s driveway at just the right moment, you would have seen me climbing in and out of my kitchen window followed by my two furry goofballs who thought this was one of the most fun games ever.

**************************************************************************

Unexpected Happy Ending.

A few hours after we gave up and decided to call in a pro, my husband tried one more thing and, et voila, got the door open.

After which he took out the full mortise door lock mechanism (I’m going to keep calling it that so you can be as conversant with the term as we now are) and, after watching an excellent video from “Ask This Old House”, was able to disassemble and reassemble the needed bits to effect a repair.

I shan’t be taking the simple act of opening my back door for granted again.

Note: It seems 2025 is the year the universe has decided to give me a lot of opportunities to climb in and out of windows.

I wonder what will be next.

(If you missed it, and are interested in my previous adventure at the bank, check out issue #107 here.)

From The Garden

The cool spring weather has generated very happy lettuces. Which, because I let the lettuce go to seed each year, are all “volunteers”.

We need to eat them quick before the heat comes and they bolt…

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