Comedy of Errors/Putting a Sock in It

Yesterday, I promised to share the comedy of errors that involved this picture.

Today, I have the story for you, but I have to warn: there are no cool action shots to accompany it. One of the pleasant things about blogging about food is that it's so easy to slow down time and take step-by-step photos (OK, or not, when it all comes together at once, but you know what I mean!) In the rest of life, sometimes things happen too fast for on-the-spot photography. And even if I wanted Phil to pose to recreate some of the antics with the truck, with six inches of snow since this morning...

yes, we've set up our rowing machine platform...

...I wouldn't be able to reproduce the muddy Saturday scene I'm about to write about!

So, my words will have to suffice:

Our cabin has only one door to the outside. Equipped with a handle rather than a knob, on purpose, so that you can open it even with both hands full, it is a high-traffic zone: we only lock it if we're going to be gone for several days. So, when I stepped outside on Friday evening, I never expected that I'd have to re-enter through the window.

It was around 10pm. I was beginning to move toward bed after writing intently all afternoon. Phil was still reading--he had barely looked up for two days, since Amy had sent his way a 900-some page fantasy novel from the Library's new acquisitions: all projects were on hold. And the pee jug was full! 

Gallon jugs are our indoor bathroom: when everything's frozen outside, it's better than making yellow snow haphazardly and freezing our nethers, and it allows us to use the valuable nitrogen discerningly. Earlier in the winter, when the snowshoe hares were decimating our raspberry canes, thwarted from eating more of the tree nursery by his aggressive tree-wrapping program, Phil had tried a short-lived and malodorous experiment involving the use of high volumes of saved-up yellow stuff all around the canes as a concentrated pheromonal repellent. Otherwise, he masterminds a complex and varied rotation so that all the trees, raspberry canes, raised beds and rhubarbs receive the sustenance in turn. I had taken over the task, these last couple days of his submergence. With a jacket over the meager singlet I'd been wearing in the solar-heated cabin, I grabbed a headlight and the jug, and headed out. 

Our overburdened coat rack is right by the inward-opening door. A bulky wad of jacket and carhartt's bloomed from the pegs and blocked the door from closing. Reaching in and pushing them aside for a brief moment to pull the door shut was a sped-up version of many of the dances we play in this cabin, where we're always circumventing one thing to reach another. I tell people our cabin is like one of those kids' puzzles where there is a single tile missing, and you can only slide one tile at a time to get everything in order. 

The door had been sticking for months anyway, so I wasn't worried about the slam as I pulled it past the treacherous clothing.

When I came back with the jug empty, the handle turned a little more than is normal and stuck there distorted, leering at me. The door would not open. I roused Phil from his book: he couldn't open it either. There was some rattling, thumping, cursing. He spent twenty minutes or so removing the handles, poking around in the latch mechanism, lifting and pulling. I did what I could from the other side, leaving my headlight off so as not to blind him through the hole where the handle had been. Pyramus and Thisbe, I thought, incongruously. I lifted, shoved, leaned as he requested, getting chilly now, wondering whether removing the hinges would work or how else to get in. "OK, I think you're going to have to come in through the window." Ah, yes: the window in our little side room. "Will I even fit through it?" "Sure!" It is a crank mechanism, and doesn't open very wide. I lumbered around through the mud with the jug, climbed up on the Little Chief smoker under the open window, and stepped through into Phil's arms. For the night, we put a sock in the hole where the handle had been. 

Next morning, I put the finishing touches to a cheesecake order, while Phil wrestled with the door some more. He'd taken the hinges off, but had to squeeze out of the window himself after breakfast to get to the outhouse. When he came back, he called, "Can you come and catch the door?" I set down the piping bag, wiped my hands, and assumed my 'door-catching position.' Several thumps as he got a run-up, a louder crunch as he impacted, and the door tipped into my upraised hands. 

By the time we'd gutted out the latch mechanism and rehung the door, I was running late for my writing class and Phil was supposed to be dropping off the cheesecake, so we put the sock back in the latch-hole, gathered everything up, and headed to the truck. 

Phil turned the key: nothing. The lights had been left on. The truck was facing inward, so we got ready to push-start. Backward. And this is early April: the cul-de-sac is one big mud boil. The wheels were sunk a good half inch into gooshy mud. As I took my position in the driver's seat, selected 'reverse' and pushed in the clutch, the overcast skies opened up to sleet. So, while the clock ticked, I got to watch Phil in his carhartt's, with his bad back, planting a 2x12 board deep between the front wheels of the truck and levering it up with all his might to move us backward through the mud and sharp drizzle. The back wheels sank every few yards and he would curse, throw the board down and go to find more boards to build tracks for the wheels to run on. 

After much zig-zagging through mud and boards, we finally got off the boggy plateau toward the sloping part. At this point, mindful of the ditch on either side, Phil took the wheel and had me push. When he popped the clutch, a sighing noise with a sudden halt slammed me into the hood. And again. This truck wasn't going anywhere.

So? I rode my bike to class and arrived a mere thirty minutes late, breathless. Phil put the cheesecake back in the freezer, biked to the library, borrowed Amy's car, and jumpstarted the truck. Spenard sold him a new latch that doesn't fit our door, so although it's back on its hinges, for security and insulation we still have to put a sock in it, for now.