Locked

Okay, I'm trying to not make too much of it, but ... I can't help wondering if the universe (or some greater power/being) is trying - not so subtly - to tell me something.

Before I started working at the play center, I was there two times; once, for the interview, and later to settle some administrative stuff. The second time I was there, I was there early enough that the escalators weren't running yet.

Usually, when faced with a non-functioning escalator, I would take the stairs rather than climb the frozen escalator steps - which was what I did that morning. I climbed about six flights of stairs at the back of building, in a stairwell designated to be the fire escape. When the door closed behind me at level one, I thought it sounded ominously final, but it was one of those feelings so vague and so faint you put it down to an overactive imagination (or the ingestion too much sugar and caffeine at breakfast).

When I got to level three, I was unable to open the door. I fought a losing battle with Panic as I made my way back down to level one. The damn door which had opened for me now refused to budge. Now, how was I to know the accursed door could only be opened from the outside when there wasn't a fucking sign in sight to warn me so?

Sweating and breathing hard in the stuffy stairwell, I considered my options and chose to ring Ms. Sandra (the center manager then, with whom I was to meet in five minutes) to rescue me.

That was quite a humiliating experience. I should have seen it as a portentous omen ...

Today, I not only got myself locked, I got the entire center locked - out. The first time I got myself and the cleaning lady locked out (oh yes, more than once today did that happen), it was because after I'd changed in the storeroom and had locked the door, it didn't unlock (like it always had) after I opened it and let myself out.

After four frantic texts to Sara, two phone calls from Sara to me, innumerable keys Priya found and dumped on me, and a mantra of “Goddess, please open this door”, the door finally unlocked.

Nobody was more relieved than I was - or more prematurely so.

Less than an hour later - though nobody could say when exactly - the main door to the office was closed. Priya, returning from the ladies' room, headed for her office - the inner sanctum - then detoured back to the reception desk.

The main office door was locked. And Priya's treasure box of keys was in her office.

There was nothing anybody can do. Priya was stranded at the reception desk while I scurried off to chew my nails over my Level Five class (the attendance list was worrisomely long this morning).

Anyway, about forty-five minutes and one locksmith later, the main office door popped open. Sara mock-strangled me after my class and told me to stay away from any lockable doors for the rest of the day.

After this morning, I'm beginning to think somebody/something is trying to tell me something.

But what?