Blogging on Bolt

I'm on the Bolt Bus, thank god. Woke up at 6:30 this morning without alarm, just excited to get home for the best holiday ever I guess. I cleaned the apt and finished packing most of my winter wardrobe in time to catch the 8:30 Bus. At 7:45 I had everything (suitcase, purse, old wine shelf I plan to revive in my dad's wood shop) ready to go. I brought the wine shelf into the hall so I could go back for the suitcase and purse...and then....the door shut behind me. FFFFFFFFF! Omg I was locked out with nothing but a street-found wine shelf with 40 minutes til Bolt Bus departure.

First thought was knock on the supers' door-- despite the fact I have made Tito (my superman super) let me in on more than one occasion after midnight in various less than pretty states, he is to be continually friendly to me. Maybe because I share his love of overdecorating for the holidays? In any case, I was pretty sure waking him before 8 on a Saturday could be the end of our cordial relationship. But, I had no choice. I knocked and buzzed with no luck. Headed back up to the lobby at 5 min of 8....I stopped and met Renee, a middle aged man on his way back from a bagel run. He appeared weirded out that I was a) locked out and b) requesting his help (this is NYC after all-- probably the first time a stranger had ever talked to him). I overcame embarrassment and borrowed his phone to call Tito. No answer.

"It's cool" I told Renee, cursing myself inside but appearing to be non-challant as not to further freak out my neighbor "sorry for bothering you, I'll just hang out til Tito wakes up."

"Oh," he said "is your window locked?" No!

Horray-- Renee then told me that he lived in 6I and so I could climb through his window down to mine...I followed him upstairs but he stopped outside his apt to tell me his girlfriend was sleeping. "Wait out here a minute" he said. After about 5 I started to get worried that maybe he had gone inside with his bagels and his girlfriend turned down his request to let a strange girl interrupt her sleep to crawl out the window....but then, the elevator door opened behind me and there was Renee! "Door's open" he said, having crawled out and broken into my apt himself.

Horray, I made it-- headed home for Thanksgiving right now and boy am I feeling thankful for Renee...I'll have to bake him something when I get back. This also brings to my attention that I am averaging 1 lockout about every 6 weeks--I might need to start wearing my keys on a lanyard at all times.