Making an Enterance

An early grey Sunday morning, four Ivy League students: MD, H, M97, and myself stumble out of the Limelight's Church of Disco. H, smiling broadly and deaf from 9 hours of booty-quakeing screams, "Hallelujah that was a WILD night!" Dehydrated, low on blood sugar, sore, slightly buzzed, and mildly hallucinating, we make our way toward the green Subaru.

"We have to find the Queensboro Bridge to make it to my friend K's apartment so we can get some sleep!" MD exhaustedly says. As we start driving the salt covered vehicle, I hand out various chilled fruits, bottles of water, and road maps from the front seat.

Left turn, right turn, green light, red light, right turn, yellow light, u-turn, stop, scratch heads. Looking at the map, M97 says, "Um... so where is the Queensboro Bridge anyway?" I turn it around in his hands saying, "I think the map goes this way." Four right turns later, we end up in the same spot.

"Either I'm having a deja vu, or we're lost, because I think I've seen that pile of trash before..." H says from the back seat.

MD smartly suggests, "Drive east toward the sun until you hit the water... just don't go in." We head east and stop on a pier. "Oh, look," I exclaim, "There's a police car! Let's ask them for directions. Not it!" "Not it, either," both M97 and H yell out. Muffled, MD says, "Awww s**t. Ok, I'll go ask."

MD saunters up to the police car, banana in hand, and taps their window with the end of it. Asking for directions, she tears open the yellow handle and unwittingly gestures down the road with the half-empty rind, mimicking the officer's directions. They stare at her in puzzlement. Chiquita meat sticking on her lips, MD thanks the officers, and stumbles back into the car. Pointing with her empty peel, she decisively barks directions, and we cross the massive landmark. After getting lost on Queens Blvd, we arrive and stand at the apartment entrance.

One at a time, we each attempt to pull the doors open, but to no avail. We try again - they don't budge. ...Four minutes pass...

"I know! K lives on the 1st floor," MD says, walking around the corner, "I'll go yell at her window to wake her up." M97 and H opt for a cigarette break and sit down. Meanwhile, I stand at the glass doors, scratching my head. This calls for some industrial strength detective work.

BP's mental notes: 1) Saying "Open Sesame" doesn't work. 2) The call buttons are on the other side of this glass door. 3) Pulling harder on the handle doesn't work. ...Five minutes pass...

I closely examine the door frame. No clues appear. I continue on to where the double doors meet and should lock. I make a shocking discovery: the key hole is melted shut.

BP's Mental reasoning: A) "If the key hole is soddered, then no one can use it. If that's the case, and the door is locked, then no one lives in this building... that obviously has people living in it..." I ponder this thought for a bit... looking closer, I notice that there's no lock on the door. BP's Realization: 1) The keyhole has no real application! ... Six minutes pass...

I ask myself, "Why would you have a non-existent lock that doesn't work, yet still keeps people locked out? There HAS to be a way for people to get past this door to those push buttons. Hmm... maybe the door doesn't open at all. Therefore, no one lives in this building! Wait... I already thought of that." I consider the invisible lock five more minutes. "Ok, there's a lock that doesn't exist on a door that I can't open." I examine the door frame again, and for some reason, nothing changed.

Mental reasoning B) "If there's no lock, and pulling harder doesn't work, maybe it's a combination of pulling AND THEN pushing!" At which point, I gently push, and the gates of heaven fling wide open!

"OH MY GOD!!!! I FIGURED IT OUT," I scream, "LOOK LOOK LOOK!!! THE DOOR IS OPEN! I DEFEATED THE DOOR!!!" M97 and H Jump up and run over, excitedly asking how I discovered the secret, to which I recounted my in depth detective work. The three of us enter the small corridor, at which point we realize we don't know which button to choose. "Fiddlesticks! We need MD, but we'll get locked out if we leave," H ruefully states.

"Let's just wait until she comes back," I say, a smile growing on my face, "When she does, let's act like we're trapped inside since she doesn't know how to open the doors!" MD comes around the corner to see the three of us banging on the glass from inside, screaming to get out.

MD runs toward us. Quickly grabbing the handle, she pulls forcibly and blurts out, "OH MY GOD! How did the three of you get trapped in there?! I don't know how to get you guys out! Oh Jesus this is awful!" We raise more ruckus, then burst into laughter, rolling on the tiled floor. We show MD how to open the door, and she promptly calls her friend with the button. MD's blond friend, K, shows up and lets us in the second set of doors.

Walking inside, I notice an older Asian woman had been witnessing our door dilemma for the last 20 minutes. Cautiously approaching, her eyes clearly frightened, she defensively puts her back against the wall and swiftly escapes her building. Watching her scamper off, I ponder how long it took her to open the doors the first time she pulled on them.