Sunday, June 1, 2014

LosT HK: MY OWN KITCHEN

People around me have been talking about two things recently:

1.  LosT HK:  There are LosT rooms in Mong Kok, Lan Kwai Fong, and Causeway Bay.  You are basically put into a puzzle (situation) and you have solve it.  

and

2.  Afro-Ninja Productions Escape Series:  Where you are trapped somewhere and you have to find your way out.

Well, something crazy just happened to me.  I was put into my own puzzle recently and have survived to tell this tale.

Over the past few weeks, our kitchen sliding door had been getting stuck.  It was probably the expanding metal...but I had an inkling it was the changing weather conditions.  So, every time we closed the door, we would have to ninja kick it open.  


On one particular day, last week, I was making breakfast for us and closed the kitchen door (because we had the air conditioner running in our main room).  After preparing the breakfast, I realized that the door was stuck again.  Usually, I could just pull on it really hard and it would crack open, but it was stuck.  Thankfully, my husband was there and he kicked it open.

I made a mental note to never close the kitchen door again because I might get stuck in the kitchen.

So, as the morning went on, I had no real plans until lunch time, so I decided to do a bit of laundry.  I brought our hamper from the bathroom into the kitchen and shut the door.  I filled up the washing machine and then made my way out of the kitchen.

But, I found the door jammed.  It was jammed, jammed, jammed.  I tried to pull it to crack it open with all my might.  I tried to slide the door up so that it would come out of it's track.  I tried to kick it from the inside in the hopes of the door rebounding and opening up.  But, nothing worked.  I started to panic a bit.

Images of having to be stuck in this kitchen until late at night came into my mind.  I at least had food and water.  And I had a ... sink...  Then I looked out of the window and thought to myself, "Maybe I could climb out of the kitchen window and into the bathroom window?"  I looked down.  I couldn't do it.  Then I had a go at the door again.

I took a huge breath.

I found myself reaching for a fork.  I jammed the fork into the bottom of the door and jacked it open.  A glimmer of hope!  I then jammed the fork into the top of the door and it opened.  I stood there in shock.  I was free!

I made a mental note to never even slide the door anymore.

I told my parents and my husband later on in the day.  They all thought it was truly a Macgyver moment.  My husband called his parents to see if they could find someone to fix the door sometime soon.

The next day, my father in-law and mother in-law came over early with a can of WD-40.  They started squirting the jammed door hinges.

I was quite skeptical.

But, you know what...the simple solution was to grease the door.

And now it opens and closes like a dream.


I thought this post might be helpful for anyone who finds their doors jamming.  I learned several things from this experience:

1.  It's good to always think of solutions to problems
2.  It's good to try different solutions to problems
3.  It's good to have WD-40

I wonder if I can successfully solve any of the LosT HK puzzles now that I have escaping my OWN KITCHEN under my belt...