I don’t do this very often, but I am short on material at the moment. It’s a temporary problem for sure. Luckily, I was involved in a Joanne-like moment with my friend, Laura, recently, so I will share that. 

Laura called us with a situation. Her dog Luke is a professional counter surfer. You could turn your back for a second and that whole chicken you made for dinner is gone and Luke is already chilling on the couch with only his chicken breath and a dribble of chicken goo on his mouth to give him away. Due to Luke’s proficiency, Laura has had to find creative ways to protect her food and feed her cat. Cat food was easy picking for Luke, and man, he loves cat food. Of course, he loves all food. So, Laura started feeding her cat on the counter in the main bathroom with the door closed. This worked well for years, until it didn’t. 

One day, the cat finished eating and was busy getting into things in the bathroom while waiting for Laura to remember to let him out of the bathroom. Cooter (the cat) managed to get the bottom drawer of the vanity open. This may not be a problem in some bathrooms, but in this bathroom, the drawer is directly in front of the door. I’m sure when Laura discovered the problem, she was on her way out the door to work. Also, the litter box is not in this bathroom, so she didn’t want to just leave poor Cooter in there all day. Although cats are known to create issues, they rarely participate in the fix, so instructing Cooter to close the drawer didn’t work. 

After trying and failing to use a hanger to close the drawer around the door, she called us to see if we had any ideas, thinking (erroneously) that perhaps we had been in this situation before. With the door open at all, the facing of the drawer couldn’t get past. The drawer got hung up on the door. But if the door was closed, how would she push the drawer shut. She tried the hanger under the door, but didn’t have the leverage. In the effort with the hanger, the door knob came off in her hand, with the other side dropping into the open drawer. Great! Now, we had a new problem. And Cooter was freaking out on the other side of the door. 

In complete frustration, Laura pulled the door shut (with her finger in the hole from the door handle) and kicked a hole in the bottom of the door. Actually, I am not sure if she kicked it or used a hammer, but there was a hole and a wigged out cat. She reached through the hole in the door and shut the drawer with satisfaction. The cat shot through the hole right after that. 

Now, she needed to address the closed door with no handle. With our poor advice, she tried a myriad of tools to open the door. Finally, after some time, I asked her if the metal rod was still on her side of the handle, or was it on the handle that was safely tucked away in the drawer in the bathroom. It was on her side. Hey, why don’t you just fit that into the opening? Duh! So, when you have an emergency, you may want to find better help than the Haldemans. At that point, she put the rod into the opening and opened the door! 

Now, she has a cool cat opening in her door and a great story. We may need to visit her in Wisconsin to fix the door, since I feel partly responsible for not coming up with a better solution. Have a great week everyone!