The Open Door

T

hey say: "When God closes one door, he always leaves another open." Or maybe you've heard it with another window intead of a door. I'm sure you're familiar with it in any case, and it's a saying I strongly believe in. Well, at least with a bit of modification.

You see, to me it should be: "When God closes one door, he always leaves a metal covered vent somewhere in the room." You know, just enough so that we're sorely tempted to McGyver our way out of there. The door is shut and locked tight, and we're standing above this tiny vent thinking "there is absolutely no way."

I mean, if it were as simple as a door, we'd all be making all these radical life changes, right? I mean who sees this lovely alternative open door and says: "Nah, F- that. I'm just going to bang my head against this one for another ten or twenty years and hope wood decay has begun to set in. Maybe if I spit a lot, I can promote rot. Yeah, great idea. Forget you, open door." Or even if it's a window, I think we can figure that shit out. Latch one, latch two. Freedom!

Most assuredly we're staring at a tiny, just-less-than-wide-enough, dark grate. Even if you had tools to get the screws out and the faceplate off, you're pretty sure your swollen head couldn't fit in there. Plus you can vaguely sense a ninety degree turn in your vent traversing future, and you don't bend that way anymore.

Yet, if you're like me, you're still wandering around the room trying to fashion a reciprocating saw out of bath fixtures and piltfering a bit of copper piping to shunt it into the wall socket. You're pretty sure you're going to start a fire and maybe cut off a limb in the process, but both would be preferable to being stuck here. After all, the fire could burn down the door, and a severed limb would surely help the vent-fitting situation.

Then, right the time you finished building a step stool from the wooden cabinets, have greased yourself all over with someone else's toothpaste, and are standing on your tiptoes with one arm in the vent, the Kool-aid man comes bursting through the very same wall: "Ohhhh yeah!"

And as you're standing there with the metal rim that represents all that remains of that damned vent, dripping a shimmering blue like you were re-enacting Avatar, and looking quite the fool, you take a sip of the red liquid and feel a cool ocean breeze brush your face. The nearby waves promise to rinse you off and there are big fluffy robes on a rack nearby. The question then becomes: Do you have the courage to reap what your hard work has sown? Yeah, a giant cartoon helped, but what you don't know is that it was the parched throat you're sporting as a result of your labors that brought the thirst quencher on. Don't sell yourself short.

If this scenario is too fantastical for you, then by all means, continue to think in terms of a window or door. It's been my experience that anything worth having is certainly worth covering yourself up with Colgate. I mean, I wish it were as easy as a door or window too. I'm just sick of waiting on either of those.