Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I did an original sin. I poked a badger with a spoon.

Heidi and I break a lot of stuff in our apartment. There was the oven knob incident, and the garbage disposal (twice), my toilet, our refrigerator, various light bulbs, our recliner, several coffeemakers, the dryer, the time I threw a coaster at the wall, and, very recently, Heidi's closet door, the patio door blinds, and our kitchen light. The beauty of renting, however, is that the apartment complex had to pay to fix most of this.

With our history of breaking shit, I wasn't too surprised yesterday evening when I broke the front door. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Jennie, whatever, you did not break the front door." Well, shut up, yes I did. You see, for the past several weeks, Heidi and I have noticed that the lock on our front door was getting harder and harder to lock and unlock. So what did we do? We mostly ignored it. And when we weren't ignoring it, we complained about it. This was working well for us, you know, until yesterday.

So there I am, all tired from work and shivering on the front stoop, and I stuck my key in the hole, like I always do, but this time? When I tried to pull the key out? Part of the lock came with it. You know, the little cylinder part that has all the pins and crap in it? That little cylinder was just hanging there. A bit was still in the hole, but most was hanging out in the cold, cold, winter air.

"Hmm," I thought. "Perhaps I can shove it back in." So. I tried to shove it back in. Nothing.

"Hmm," I thought. "Perhaps I can simply turn the cylinder with the key and, even though it's not even connected to the door anymore, the door will unlock." So. I tried to turning the key. Nothing.

"Hmm," I thought. "Perhaps this is something I cannot fix myself and I should stop messing with it before I make it much, much worse and Heidi and I can never get back into the apartment and we have to live in an igloo next to the front porch." And so I got in my car and drove up to the apartment complex office.

Things were looking up as I walked into the office, for who should be working but Hot Guy Who Works In Our Apartment Complex Office (who I will now call . . . Bartleby). He is the one I have a tiny, baby, little crush on. Not in a real way, but in the junior high way where every time he talks to me, I start stuttering and my face gets red and I say stupid things. Well. Stupider than usual.

Bartleby: Hi, there. What can I do for you?
Me: I'm having a problem!
Bartleby: OK?
Me: I broke our front door and now the door won't unlock.
Bartleby: Um . . .
Me: Allow me to demonstrate.

And this is when I got my keys out and walked him over to the lock on his office door and imitated the whole lock coming out of the door while attached to my key thing.

Bartleby: Wow, I've never heard of that happening before.
Me: Super.
Bartleby: I'll call the maintenance guy.

While I waited, I was just going to sit in the lobby and read my book (after calling Heidi to tell her if she tried to go home, it would be a fruitless journey that would only end in tears and frustration), but Bartleby came out to talk to me! Yay!

Bartleby: Talk talk talk.
Me: Reply reply reply.
Bartleby: Ha ha ha!
Me: Ha ha ha! Oh, we are laughing!

And the whole time, I'm thinking, "Is he gay? I can't tell if he's gay. He seems sort of gay. It would totally be just my luck if he were gay," but then I said, "I hope I'm not keeping you," and he said, "No, I'm here til 6 anyway," and I said, "Oh, OK," and he said, "I really don't mind staying after 6, though," and I thought, "Score!" but then he said, "My fiance and I were just going to get some wings later anyway," and then I thought, "Fuuuuuuuuck you." True story.

So, apparently Bartleby and I are not meant to be. Unless he and his fiance break up, but it feels wrong to hope for such a thing. Luckily, Heidi and I still have Bernard and Sebastian, who may or may not be gay and who may or may not have another Hot Guy now living with them. New Hot Guy has glasses (heart) and a black car (irrelevant) and a purple lunchbox (um) and now all he needs is a name. And so I shall christen him . . . THADDEUS.

Oh, we eventually got back into our apartment. Like THAT'S the important part of the story. Sheesh.

_____

Today on The Collective, it's your turn to tell us our business.

don't wake me, I plan on sleeping in

Last night, I was coming out of a restaurant where I had just been treated to a lovely dinner by my lovely parents, and I noticed I had a voicemail from Heidi. It started like this:

Hello, JENNIE, this is Heidi. Your roommate. I was just calling because there's this situation at the apartment . . .

and at this moment, I started visualizing all sorts of things. Like Phoebe had somehow turned on the fireplace or the stove and caught the apartment on fire or had gotten herself locked in the microwave with a rabid monkey or SOMETHING WORSE. Then, after I had a mini-heart attack, I kept listening:

I just thought you should know that Hot Guy is outside playing football. And he has Hot Friends. So you should get home ASAP so you can see Hot Guy and his Hot Friends playing Hot Football.

Unfortunately by the time I got home, the Hotness was over. So sad. There are actually two Hot Guys in our apartment complex that Heidi and I have been keeping an eye on recently. One has dark hair and one has light hair and I almost hit the one with light hair with my car in the parking lot one day. I've only had one run in with the dark-haired guy. It was at the very end of my run and I passed him on the sidewalk. He was running the other way and looked like he was just getting started. WHY I couldn't have seen him before my face was beet red and my hair was sweat-plastered to my face, I don't know. Anyway, I told Heidi it reminds me a lot of high school, like when you have a crush on the captain of the football team (I don't get this particular cliche . . . I don't remember having a crush on the captain of any team) and you walk by his locker between classes so you can giggle and tell your friends about it later. Because whenever one of us sees Hot Guy 1 or Hot Guy 2 we have to tell the other. In fact, the reason we were sitting on the balcony last night drinking beer and playing Truth or Dare was because we were spying on Hot Guy and his friends. WHAT? What did YOU do last night that was so exciting?

Our game of Truth or Dare escalated quickly. Truths suddenly jumped from "did you ever have a crush on a teacher in high school" to "would you ever get back together with [name has been deleted]?" and "how do you really feel about [oh you'd better BELIEVE name has been deleted]." And then the dares went from "I dare you to tell the Internets that you're a lesbian" to "I dare you to throw your underwear in that tree." By the way, the underwear stayed up there until about an hour ago, when Heidi found it on the front stoop. Heh.

Anyway, Heidi left a little while ago so I have nothing else to do but sit here and write these damn How To articles. Actually, it is about 800 degrees in our apartment right now so really what I've been doing is lying on the floor in front of the fan and whining about how hot it is even though no one can hear me, unless of course Hot Guy is outside exacting his revenge by spying on our apartment. Which I'm actually totally fine with, SO TAKE THAT, HOT GUY!