I'll be on the balcony if you need me.

I live a rather boring life which is why I don't post very often. However when something does happen in my life that I feel is worth writing about I sit down at my computer and type up, as best I can the event to share with those who actually read my blog.

OK so I'm at home and I have a computer that someone asked me to fix and I start looking at it and I could see there was a lot of dust caked to the power supply fan. I decide to take it out on the balcony and blow out all the dust and dirt. I took the computer outside with a can of air, turn and close the door to keep the dust outside. I begin to blow out the dust until the can was so cold I can hardly hold it and it wasn't blowing very hard. So now I have to decide to either wait for the can of air to warm up or get another can. I decide to go back inside and get another can. I turn to go back into my apartment, and reach for the handle to open the door. I give it a yank and the only thing that moves is my hand off the handle.

Some how the door locked and I was on the outside with no way to get back in. I know what you're thinking no problem I can always call for help with my cell phone, well wouldn't you know I also left my cell phone on the table inside my apartment. To make matter worse my apartment is on the second floor so I start looking around trying to figure out how I can get out of this predicament. Now if you have seen any of the pictures I've posted of myself you know I am not a small woman, it is safe to say I am a LARGE woman. So although in my younger days I could have easily made the jumped, however a person of my age and size that jump would have been followed by a trip to the hospital for at least one cast if not several.

Now let me explain what my balcony over looks. I have a lot of trees behind my apartment, nice for privacy but a problem in this situation. There are other apartments behind me but they are across "the creek" or in reality the drainage canal. So seeing the neighbors is difficult, and I am looking at the backside of their apartments and to make matters worse it's 9:20 am on a Tuesday so of course no one is home or on their balconies. I tried to think like MacGyver and see if there was any way I could get off the balcony without causing myself harm. I took down my cloths line and thought I could tie it to the post and then use it to climb down to the ground. The first problem with that idea was I don't know how to tie a knot that I could trust not to come untied as I dangled off the side of the balcony. Another problem was I had no idea how to climb down the side of a building using a nylon rope, and those were the simplest of my problems.
Here are a couple of pictures of what the view is like from my balcony.


So I began to call out "HELLO?" to see if anyone was within ear shot. No luck there so I went to my storage closet to see what I might find in there to help signal some one for help. Found paper, no pen, found durflame logs and I did have a lighter to light it but I thought perhaps starting a fire would only make things worse. I wasn't having any success with the closet, and why should I obviously I was not having a run of good luck or I wouldn't be locked out of my apartment on the balcony.

I tried to get the attention of my downstairs neighbor, that is if there was someone home and I didn't know if there was, but I was unsuccessful with that attempt, although I just about pulled her wind chime off when my cloths line got tangled up with it while I was waving the rope for attention. I kept looking around hoping a neighbor would come home and I might be able to get their attention.

The trees near my balcony are not big trees so getting out to one of them and climbing down was not an option either. I caught a glimpse of a neighbor as they went into their apartment but wasn't fast enough to yell and get their attention. I was beginning to wonder how long I would be stuck out there. Thoughts of spending days on the balcony with out food or a coat or anything warm crossed my mind. Then I thought surely I would be able to get someones attention by this evening but if it was after the office closed how could I get back into my apartment.

I decided to sit down on the railing where I could kind of see the neighbors door who lives across the walkway from me and hope today is not the first day that they don't have 50 people coming and going to that apartment. Well I sat and waited, and waited and listened for voices. Did you know when you are straining to hear a voice you can really hear a lot of what is going on around you. I tried without success to send the squirrel that ran up a tree next to me for help but he would have none of it. I was stuck there until my luck changed.

So I sat looking into my apartment at the TV that was still on watching ER without being able to hear very well, although if I had tried I probably could have heard it better but then I wouldn't have been listening for the sounds of people outside. I started to think surely there is someone who is home in one of these apartments, and they will come out on their patio to smoke or something so I can finally get someone to help me. So I sat and waited.

Then I heard people talking I jumped down and looked around to see who I was hearing. I saw a couple coming out of their apartment and I started to yell to them. Now I could see them as I knew where they were but they were having a hard time figuring out where this voice was coming from. I was madly waving my arms hoping they would figure out where I was. When they finally saw me I asked if they would call the office and tell them I had locked myself out on my balcony and need to be let back in. They asked if I knew the phone number for the office, which I didn't. (Mental note memorize office phone number.) They went back into their apartment for what seemed like forever but was really only a few minutes and came out still on the phone with the office. They said the office would send someone over right away. I thanked them for their help and watched them leave. Then I waited again for help to arrive.
This picture is looking in the direction of the apartment from which the couple came. As you can see it's hard to see their front door.

Now the complex is not a large one so it seemed to be taking longer than I thought it should for help to arrive. I began to wonder if those people didn't just pretend to call the office and then tell me help would be coming just so they could leave. What a dirty trick that would have been. Waiting and listening for footsteps. I thought I sure hope he doesn't knock and wait for me to answer the door as that was the problem I couldn't get inside to do so. Finally the maintenance man arrived and came into my apartment. I waved at him sheepishly through the sliding glass door from the balcony and he came over and let me in, My Hero!

He checked out the door trying to figure out how it locked me out in the first place. Funny how things never do what they did when a person who fixes things looks at it. He tried several times to shut the door and get it to lock but it never did. I had no idea how I did it and believe me I will never go out onto my balcony and close the door all the way again. I also intend to keep my phone with me. I was stranded on my balcony for a little over an hour which really isn't that long but can feel like forever when you feel trapped. I think I will look into getting one of those emergency ladders you hook to your window ledge and get 2 one for the window and one to keep in the balcony in case I get locked out again. Believe me if it can happen it will happen to me. And all this because I was trying to help someone out with their computer. You see no good deed goes unpunished.