Breaking and entering

I am hunting for a new place to live, and I'm finding that apartments tend to be like men: the good ones are all taken.

What looked to be a promising flat - convenient location, no shower head connected to the sink hanging over the toilet, less expensive than my current room - took a turn for the worse when the landlord discovered that someone (should I be afraid that he didn't seem to know who?) had locked my bedroom.

"Stupid," he muttered, over and over, as he jiggled the handle and banged the door. "Stupid."

Ah, but then he got smart. 'The best way to convince this young foreigner to stay in my apartment,' he must have thought, 'is to demonstrate that I can break into his room even if he locks it.' He brushed off an old ID card and began to wiggle it into the lock. The card began to fall apart under the pressure, so he dug around and pulled what looked like a new card from a plastic sleeve.

"Uh, I don't think you should ruin your card for this," I cautioned as he began to shape it into a fine accordion.

"No no; just can't break it," he assured me. The mangled card already looked worse than broken.

Because he couldn't show me the room itself, he invited me to get as close as I could - helping him break into it. By this time B had already headed home, and church class was at least 45 minutes gone, so yeah, why not? We alternated between thrashing the door and jamming the card, but the lock did its job. Now that I think about it, perhaps this was all some sort of reverse psychology - 'See how safe this room is? Not even we can break in!'

"I'll just come back later," I said, sweating from the humidity and the guilt.

"Yeah," he replied, as he kept on working. "Here, you try again."

More failure. He finally relented and collapsed, defeated, onto his low, blue couch. Perhaps to save some face and pretend my visit was worth my while, he invited me to sit down and watch TV with him. I sat down, if only because I couldn't just walk out on my accomplice; but I escaped at the first commercial break. "I have to go knock over a liquor store," I wanted to say.

Let's just say this was better than the place I saw earlier in the afternoon - the one on the 8th floor of an elevator-less building. After all, I'm going back tomorrow when he finally vanquishes the lock. Or uses a key.

Things I've remembered for more than 16 years

By a stroke of poor design, our office shares its doorbell mechanism with our neighbors. That is, when someone rings either one of our bells, both sides hear it. There is a solid wall separating the offices, so it seems odd (with room for a good explanation) that this feature exists. It seems odder (with far less room for a good explanation) that it cannot be disabled to allow notifications to be funneled only to the appropriate side of the solid wall.

In order to prevent both offices from getting the door with each ring, we agreed to activate two sets of chimes. The standard ding-dong notes that our neighbors have a guest; we head to the door when we hear the first four bars of a classic American nursery rhyme.

A quick poll of my co-workers reveals that none of them have heard these songs before. I wonder what it’s like to listen to a stunning masterpiece like “Row, row, row your boat” and not even know you are witness to the pinnacle of genius. I pity them.

For the culturally refined, here is a list of my doorbell songs (and make good use of the links to relive your childhood!)

Do You Know the Muffin Man?
Oh My Darling, Clementine
BINGO
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Hush Little Baby
Whistle, Whistle, Little Bird
Home on the Range
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Did You Ever See a Lassie
Farmer in the Dell
London Bridge
There’s one more, but I haven’t figured it out yet. And I only get to hear it once every twelve times someone comes to our door, so it may take some time.

I’ve also stumbled upon catchy American kids’ tunes when holding on the phone. It makes me wonder if elevator music and door chimes in the US are actually Chinese nursery rhymes.

Perhaps the constant playing (and mental replaying) of these songs accounts for the unshakeable sensation that it should be naptime soon, or at least recess.