Trapped!

My Mother-in-Law, whom we shall call Toadputty (it's her favorite word that she made up) leads an interesting life. She has a knack for meeting people with unusual quirks and for finding herself in a variety of odd situations. On Monday Toadputty found herself in one of her usual misadventures.

Toadputty's daughter is getting married in October and she spent the weekend searching for a "mother of the bride" dress. Saturday she went to the LM Bridal Store, a small shop owned by an elderly Jewish couple. Other than the sticky dressing room door, Toadputty was pleased with her experience. The couple was very accomodating and even let her try on a plum-colored dress that was pre-purchased and waiting to be picked up. She liked the plum dress but wanted to shop around a little more. She searched several department stores and dress shops on Sunday in vain and decided to order the plum dress.

She returned to the LM Bridal Store on Monday and as fate would have it, the plum dress was still there. Mr. LM, the elderly co-owner of the store, insisted that Toadputty try the dress on one more time. Toadputty went into the same dressing room as she did on Saturday and found that she needed help with the zipper on the dress. She went to open the door and found that she couldn't turn the knob. Toadputty was trapped in the dressing room! Toadputty called for help and the couple rushed to her aid.

"You know, we had a lady in this same dressing room earlier this morning who had a difficult time opening the door." Mr. LM commented.

Toadputty said nothing in reply but fumed from her side of the wall and wondered why they didn't close the dressing room off when they had troubles with it earlier in the day. There was a great deal of jiggling of the knob from both sides of the dressing room but the door would not budge.

"A screwdriver!" Mr. LM exclaimed. "We'll use a screwdriver."

Mr. LM retrieved a screwdriver and began working at the door without result. Mr. LM slid the screwdriver through the slates of the door for Toadputty to use but she had no luck either.

"I'm going to break the door down." Mr. LM said with an authoritative and determined air. "Stand back."

With the visions of a cartoon character running in place before tearing off at warp speed, Toadputty stood on the opposite side of the dressing room and waited. Mr. LM hit the door with a force that shook the walls, but the door remained unaffected.

"Lock the door." Mr.LM said.

"What?" Toadputty asked dubiously.

"Lock the door. If we play with the lock, we might be able to get the door open."

Toadputty questioned the sense behind Mr.LM's reasoning, but she obligingly pushed in the little button that was just under the knob. Again, more fiddling and jiggling. After a few minutes of trying, the man spoke up.

"Okay, this isn't going to work. Go ahead and unlock the door."

At this point Toadputty had been in the dressing room for 30 minutes, she was hot and sweating in another's woman's dress.

"The button only pops open when you turn knob and I can't turn the knob." Toadputty replied curtly.

When Mrs. LM ran over to the tuxedo store for help, Toadputty wisely decided to change back into her street clothes. A few minutes passed and a new voice entered the coversation. It was Tuxedo man and he wanted to climb over the door and try to open it from the other side. A ladder was fetched and Tuxedo man nimbly climbed over and jumped down to stand next to Toadputty.

"Great." Toadputty said irritably. "Now we're both locked in here. What are you going to do?"

With a smile and gleam in his eye, Tuxedo man used brute force to push the door open. When the door swung open, there was a round of applause from the small crowd that had gathered to watch the drama.

Toadputty swears on a stack of toads that this really happened to her .

Chickadee