{"id":1003,"date":"2024-08-27T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2024-07-31T22:14:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T21:14:10","slug":"adhd-disasters-destroying-the-laundry-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/27\/adhd-disasters-destroying-the-laundry-door\/","title":{"rendered":"ADHD Disasters: Destroying The Laundry Door"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few weeks ago I got locked out of my house. I was pottering round in the garden when my wife and daughter bid me a cheery farewell and tootled off to a school gala – all delightfully middle class and sedate. The life mundane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Bad Situation<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, when the family left, the screen door clicked shut and I was left trapped outside with no keys, no phone, and no patience. Our house is a low-set* and has five separate exits, at least one of which is invariably left open (by mistake) whenever anyone goes out. That day though, the least secure house in Brisbane mutated into a hermetically sealed fortress. I tried all five doors and was amazed to find all five resoundingly shut. It was like Fort Knox, the day after a particularly rigorous security audit. No-one was getting into that place anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried my neighbours house, to get the spare key, but they weren\u2019t answering. I was stuck. My wife wasn\u2019t due back till late afternoon so I was facing five hours trapped outside. But it wasn\u2019t in freezing temperatures – it\u2019s Brisbane in winter and the weather is delightful. I wasn\u2019t going to die of thirst – the hose was there, and there were lots of garden veggies to stave off the threat of starvation. And the dog was there too, to provide emotional support to the wobbliest of minds – my own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could have waited. I could have been patient. I could have relaxed in the sun for a few hours until my wife came back. But I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Bad Decision<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

My ADHD non-superpowers kicked in and my entire being fixed onto one pinpoint certainty. I had to get into my house – NOW. Not in ten minutes time, not in an hour, not after I\u2019d taken a few deep breaths and considered my options. Immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only part of my house I did have access to was the garage, and (un)fortunately the toolbox was there. Armed with a power-drill and hammer, my neurodiverse mind told me I could drill out the lock on the laundry door and get in that way. Simple. I did<\/em> know that once the door had been drilled out, it would be useless and would have to be replaced, but that was in the future so wasn\u2019t worth considering. This was now, and the only task, the most important task, was to break into my house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that it\u2019s surprisingly difficult to break into a house, and what looked to be a flimsy screen door lock proved to be astonishingly robust. After ten minutes of drilling, I\u2019d only made half a centimetre of progress into the reinforced steel of the lock. I changed tack and hit the door with a hammer a few times, but this didn\u2019t work and only served to damage the frame and make the eventual cost of the repairs greater (a minor concern). I recommenced drilling until the lock superheated with the effort, attacked it with pliers for a bit, then found a pointed chisel and hammered that into the lock for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty minutes later, the door was still shut. I took a breath and a butterfly wing of good sense fluttered into my mind. I decided to check my neighbours and see if they\u2019d come back. They were in, and had been all along. Then I came round and realised what I\u2019d done, and the world collapsed. I must have looked pretty distraught, because when my neighbour let me into my house, he gave me a hug. He\u2019s a lovely man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Predictable Outcome<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Thirty minutes of drilling and hammering later<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One apologetic phone call to my wife later and the incident was over. The laundry door is now jammed shut from the inside too – an ongoing inconvenience to the family, a disappointment to the dog who likes to go out that way and chase possums, and a continuing reminder of my own lack of self-control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t have to be like that. Other (sane) options would have been<\/p>\n\n\n\n