The one in which I was McGyver!

Most of you will remember my blog posts from a while back where I talked about the horrible messes my girls decided to make by raiding our pantry in the middle of the night. Well we solved that problem by switching their doorknob around so it was on backwards and literally locking them in their room at night. (don't worry we only ACTUALLY locked it for a week until they got it in their heads that they couldn't leave the room at night. then they just thought they couldn't)
I digress.
In June, Tracy went on a road trip to the Oregon coast with one of his high school friends. Leaving me alone with the girls.. for a whole week (pictures to follow cause they are cool). He left Saturday morning. That whole day was ok... it was Sunday that was the bad day. The girls were miserable. They fought with me, cried for their dad and were just generally misbehaved. Needless to say that night they were locked in their room. However, at around midnight they were still awake and I went into their room to yell at them to go to sleep. Unfortunately for me, they had placed Madison's potty-training potty behind the door. Even more unfortunately... they had used it. Cue ick factor.
Naturally, I ran to grab the carpet cleaning stuff, the whole time yelling at the girls about how horrible they were being to me. I threw the frog potty in the bathroom sink with the hot water running to sterilize that and crouched down behind their door to start scrubbing the carpet. Their door was ticking me off. It kept swinging open and I had to keep batting it away from where I was furiously scrubbing the carpet. I got so angry that the 5th time it swung open, I slammed it shut. I finished cleaning the carpet and stood up to leave... only to find that their door was somehow still locked. I obviously unlocked it to get into their room... so I don't know how it was locked but it was.
I freaked.
I was now locked in their bedroom, at midnight, with water running in the bathroom. I had no cell phone, and the only way out was through the window, which would have done me no good because I knew every other door and window in my house was locked or shut. My sister in law lives in our apartments but I knew that she had taken a sleeping pill earlier that night because she'd had a hard weekend so even if I escaped through the window there was no one to help me back into the house. I searched the girls room for something that I could use to unlock the door but there was nothing. Their room was literally empty from our spring cleaning. Every toy, every hanger, every everything, except their bed and dresser, was gone from their room. The girls of course, thought this was hilarious and kept laughing and saying stuff like "haha now you have to sleep with us"
I was freaking out. Full on freaking out. The kind of freaking out where you start thinking you think the doors not actually locked, its just stuck right? I think I spent 15 minutes trying to twist the door knob hard enough for it to just magically pop open or break the lock. That doesn't work. I searched their room again.
Still empty.
I tried the door knob again.. Still locked.
I searched the room again. Yep... still definitely empty.
By now its got to be 12:30 at least. The water is still running and I've just about convinced myself that there is no way out for the night and I should stick it out til morning when I can escape through the window, find my sis in law and get a key to the front door...
but then I notice it. The top hinge on the door is about an inch and a half pulled out. I stare and it... and stare at it some more. and then a plan forms!
If I can find something... anything.. that can pop that hinge out, then I can simply pull the door out of the frame and be free!
But I've already checked the room.
So I check again, and that's when I see it!


Thats right. A bookshelf holder. A metal bookshelf holder. Lying against the baseboard in their room. I grabbed in triumph, squealing with delight. But there was something wrong... I had no leverage to push the pin up any higher. I had nothing to stand on and I just couldn't get the top pin to pop out no matter how hard I pushed. I slumped to the ground in defeat, but I decided to try one last time to pop the bottom pin out. To my delight it popped out on my first try!
I then used the bottom pin to pop out the top pin and VOILA!! FREEDOM!!!
I seriously ran around my apartment in pure joy!
Then I put the door back on, told them to go to bed and went and took a shower. Panic makes me sweaty apparently.