So, I can’t remember if I told you about my suitcases…
Well, shortly after I arrived I unpacked my bags and found “Chinese vacation homes” for all of my belongings. I was lucky to have closet space and built-in cubby holes above a desk, so everything had a place to go.
See, I’m not the type of person who can live out of boxes or suitcases or a van or something. Whenever I move, I always have everything unpacked and put away within 24 hours. Pictures on the wall and everything. I can’t sleep otherwise; I get this awful twitch that keeps the cat up.
So, when I was done I put my two suitcases into the hallway closet – so I wouldn’t break out in hives from looking at them – and I shut the door. And as the door closed and latched, the handle just kept on coming until I was standing there with it in my hand.
I call this shot "Door without handle holding luggage hostage".
And with a closet door that wouldn’t open.
Lovely.
I was actually very calm about it. I figured that I had 25+ days to figure out how to rescue my bags – and I really didn’t need them until then. One of the bags wasn’t even mine, so who cared anyway, really? Worst case – I could go to the silk market and haggle for a fake designer suitcase before I left. My Mom couldn’t possibly be upset if I upgraded her suitcase to a Coach luggage piece. Right?
Over the last two weeks if there was a dull moment in the apartment, I would try a few MacGyver tricks. Butter knife. Tweezers. Hair pin. Straw. Clothes pin. Shoelace. Whatever.
Nothing worked.
Then the building superintendent came through the apartment to show a prospective renter. I wasn’t here, but my roommate showed him the door and he tried to help. Whatever he stuck in the door didn’t work either, but it did knock the other half of the handle onto the floor INSIDE the closet. Which made the door really stuck shut.
No problem. Still almost two weeks to figure it out…
And then yesterday I was in the kitchen washing dishes while my roommate told me about the Chinese Acrobat performance she went to on her night off. And all of a sudden I noticed something behind the refrigerator…
A window? A door? A hole?
I don’t what it is. And it’s really weird that it’s there.
But I started to size it up in my head and guess whether or not I could fit through it. If I could get myself up there, we could find out…
So we paused the Chinese acrobat conversation for an impromptu performance…
Up and over the refrigerator… sucked it in… climbed down the closet wall… prayed that I could get back out… And, viola!
I have suitcases again.
So, sorry Mom. You’ll just be getting a crappy T-shirt from China. No new luggage this trip.
Acrobat show that my roommate saw in Beijing.
Door handle on the floor INSIDE the closet.
Melissa Blevins - Chinese Acrobat
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