Honky's Ladder
When a mistake disrupts your goals and creates new goals that, once achieved, become even more fulfilling goals than the goals you thought you needed to be the goals you do achieve!
My evening was all planned out. At 7pm, I would meet my ex-girlfriend outside her apartment so we could take a walk and discuss whether she saw any possibility in us getting back together. At 8:30 I’d do a small standup show.
I was frazzled getting ready, nervous about meeting her, about how it would go. I hastily threw items into my backpack (notebook, tripod for filming standup), crammed other items into my pockets and left.
I sensed I had forgotten my keys when I was halfway downstairs. I began slapping my pockets frantically like a crazed old drunkard in a jug band, then dug inside them with my hands as if my pants pockets held a secret compartment my keys might have fallen into.
Before succumbing to despair, I wondered if it was possible I’d left my door unlocked. I would need a neighbor to let me back upstairs to check, as the door in the stairwell was locked and to access the elevator I’d need my fob and my fob was attached to my keys.
I sat down in the lobby and messaged my ex-girlfriend that my continued attempt to worm my way back into her life would have to wait. She replied with a link to a locksmith. What a sweety! I thanked her but did not open the link as I had not yet accepted my fate.
Then I just sat dumbly in the chair. No one sits in either of these two lobby chairs. If you’re sitting in one of these chairs, something terrible has happened. Surprising then, the amount of residents passing through the lobby who saw me in the chair and did not ask me if I needed help. I could have opened my mouth and asked for help but I was feeling shy and ashamed and they should have known.
It was only Chris, the heavily-tatted dude who lives down the hall from me and owns a gorgeous little dog, who reached out in my time of need. He took me upstairs in the elevator and waited to see if my door would open. We both hoped it would so we could have a small moment of shared celebration and go back to being two bros who had access to their homes. If it were locked, Chris and I would not be of the same social status. He would pity me, I would feel envious of him, and we would be all too eager to part ways so the discomfort could be alleviated.
What I failed to remember about my door is that it takes ages to latch. The door-closing apparatus above the door that controls the speed at which the door swings shut as well as the speed of its latching is on a very low setting. There have been mornings I’ve woken to the sound of my door latching, completing its long journey to being a fully closed door.
Had I simply pushed on the door it would have easily opened and all my problems would have vanished. What happened instead is that I put my hand on the door’s handle and, in a state of panic, pulled instead of pushed, thereby ensuring the door was now securely latched! The sound produced by the latch-click could have been that of my own soul freezing and shattering simultaneously.
I looked at Chris, who had not realized what I’d done but understood I was truly locked out. He winced sympathetically and asked if perhaps the sliding door to my balcony was unlocked.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, for this had not even occurred to me. “I think it is, yes! I never lock it!” Chris said he wished he had a ladder in his truck. He said good luck and went home.
I made calls. Real estate agent, the building’s management company. No answers. Back in the courtyard, I looked at my balcony. Perhaps I could stand on the gate in front of the ground-floor apartment below mine and maybe just reach my balcony and hoist myself up? But I could see it would not be high enough. The apartment beneath mine is occupied by a sixty-something medical-marijuana smoker named Troy and his family. I am on good terms with them and even smoked some of Troy’s medical weed once. I knocked on their door to see if Troy could somehow help me, but only his daughter was home with no idea of when Troy might return.
Our complex has a Facebook group so I posted in there asking if anyone owned a ladder. I waited several minutes but there was no response. It was time to consider a locksmith. I called one, who quoted me $450 for after-hours call-outs! Impossible, offensive. I would sooner move to a new building.
The idea to just purchase a ladder and use it to climb up to my balcony and then return the ladder for a full refund seemed the best option. It struck me as both very dumb and incredibly smart at the same time. There were variables, of course. What if the store did not have a ladder tall enough? What if it cost too much? What if it was too heavy to carry and too big for an Uber? What if climbing it was too scary? What if I climbed onto my balcony only to find that my balcony door was locked after all?
During the walk to the store, about twenty minutes, I was surprised to find the dread and self-loathing triggered by my mistake had been eclipsed by a sudden giddiness I felt about my stupid quest. I was awake suddenly to the gorgeous summer weather. I looked admiringly upon the flock of galahs I passed in a field. How strange to see these pink parrots so often that you don’t even see them anymore. Australians view these birds the way Americans look at seagulls, even less charitably, for “galah” is an insult here meaning “dumbass.” But are we not talking about beautiful pink birds?! How can anyone feel anything but joy in the presence of their plumage?
I was so alive to nature that even the scorched brown grass took on a kind of majesty, and I was aware that this peaceful feeling had been triggered solely by misadventure. Gaining access to my home was incredibly important and my life’s only goal in this moment, therefore I did not have time to worry if my ex would take me back, or if I’d have a good set later tonight. I was not worried about the seeming impossibility of ever proving myself as an artistic talent, or about the confusion and chaos of my romantic life. I only wanted to enter my apartment and I believed I would achieve this.
The $170 ladder was not too heavy to carry back to the complex. The price seemed very fair and I didn’t think it would be so awful if they would not refund it. There were worse things to be than a guy who owns a ladder.
Having no fob with which to enter the main gate of the complex, I was stranded outside with my ladder until neighbors let me through. I thought it showed integrity on my part that I did not simply use the ladder to climb over the gate of my own complex.
Once inside the courtyard, I extended the ladder to its maximum reach. It extended all the way to my balcony’s glass balustrade, a word I’ve just learned. The only issue now was my immense fear at climbing this quite rickety contraption and falling to probably not my death but likely to my hospitalization. Mercifully, a neighbor materialized on his way to the gym.
“Did you lock yourself out?” he asked, noticing the ladder, as if the presence of a ladder in the courtyard could mean only this. I said yes and asked if he’d mind holding my ladder as I ascended. He assented.
With the gentleman holding the ladder, I began the climb. I was being very delicate and unsure in my steps, realizing now that I could not remember having ever climbed a ladder in my whole life. My mutterings to myself about the folly of my situation increased as I went further up. “God, this is stupid,” I said on the fifth rung. “Holy shit, this is so fuckin’ stupid,” I said on the eighth rung.
“Jesus, that looks bloody scary,” the man said below me. I turned my head downward to laugh and say, “I know, right,” and when I looked at him he appeared to be light years away. The ladder hadn’t seemed so tall from down there on earth, but now there was no question in my mind that if I were to fall it would mean the end of my life.
I was now at the point of the ladder which ladder experts refer to as the “tippy top.” With no more rungs to reach for, I was reaching to the right to grip the balustrade. What was required now was faith in my balance and arm-strength as I would need to lean further rightward and extend my right leg to gain purchase on the concrete lip of my balcony. And this “lip” could barely be called a lip. It was not the pouty, full, luscious lip my fat foot wanted and I could not rely on it. Everything would depend on my upper body strength.
As my man on the ground muttered expressions of worry, I reached and leaned and wobbled. I may have blacked out. But then there was no longer any fear and I was hoisting myself up and over. I was on my balcony.
Now came the fateful moment of sliding the door open. I grabbed the handle and pulled left and—it was locked. No, I’m kidding, it was open! I was in.
I ran to the edge of my balcony and showered my accomplice in expressions of gratitude as if I were Juliet swearing her undying love to Romeo in William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, a motion picture from the 90’s I haven’t seen. He gave me a thumb’s up and left.
You can imagine how lovely and perfect my filthy little apartment appeared now that I was safely back inside. I never wanted to leave it. But there was still time to make my standup show. I raced back downstairs, folded up the ladder and put it in my storage cage in the parking garage and drove to Collingwood where I did a set for about six people and had easily my worst set in recent memory. They hated my jokes about being a sad single father and I hated the jokes too. Perhaps we could all sense that here I was talking only of failure when I should have been telling them my heroic ladder story.
Days later, with some regret, I returned the ladder.
“What was wrong with it?” asked the sales representative.
“Just not tall enough,” I said.
He asked nothing further, gave me the refund. I bet he hears this excuse so often he doesn’t question it anymore. But I almost feel bad slandering the ladder this way. I should have talked to it beforehand. “We’re gonna go back inside this store and I’m not gonna see you again after that. And I’m gonna tell the man you weren’t tall enough so I can get my money back. But it’s a lie, you were tall enough. You were more than tall enough. And I feel taller having known you.”
The latest episode of Hey Brad, How’s Australia Going? features a gal called Lainey Bird. She runs a Facebook group in Melbourne called Americans in Melbourne. Prior to our conversation it was called N & S Americans in Melbourne: Expat Help. I told her this name was clunky and now it has been changed! I DID THAT. Anyway, it was a nice conversation and might be the last podcast I ever do. This is because my Final Cut free trial has expired and I’m not sure I want to shell out $500 to continue using the software to produce a podcast I’m not even sure I enjoy doing! I mean, I definitely enjoy the interview process. It’s the posting online and asking people to watch it (knowing the vast majority of people do not watch podcasts as a rule) that I can’t stand.