It was one of those splendid nights where Becca had finished her homework, studied her flash cards, talked with her host family, and was generally free to go to sleep by nine. While normally she would have stayed up to watch TV with her host mom, Becca decided that with the increasing number of volunteers getting sick, she would opt for more sleep.
And so she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Minutes later she tried the doorknob and realized she might be in trouble. She turned it to the right and the door unlocked but refused to open, the turned it left and still it wouldn’t budge. After several quick movements back and forth, she heard her host mom on the other side of the door,
“Rebecita, estas bien?” she asked. (Rebecita, are you ok?)
“Si, pero, la puerta...,” Becca replied. (Yes, but, the door...)
The response was something Becca didn’t quite catch followed by the presence of her host dad and brother, Felipe, on the other side of the door. They talked amongst themselves for several moments and then her mom spoke through the door,
“Rebecita?” (Rebecita.)
“Si?” (Yes?)
“Felipe va a subir de la ventana.” (Felipe is going to climb through the window). Becca glanced at the tiny window six feet up the wall that linked the bathroom and the master bedroom, unsure how anyone, even a small child, would fit through that window.
Suddenly, Felipe’s face appeared in the window,
“Hola, estas bien?” he asked. (Hi, are you ok?)
“Si, estoy bien...y tu?” she replied, unsure what else to say. (Yes, I’m ok...and you?). He grinned at her and then began to pull himself through the tiny window. After several moments of trying to squeeze through the exceptionally small window, he backed out and considered their options. Finally he held up his index finger and then disappeared.
Becca stood for a moment giggling to herself at the complete ridiculousness of the situation. The worst part of it all was that this was not her first rodeo; she’d been locked inside a bathroom twice before; once in Austria and once in Canada. This was shaping up to be a habit she didn’t appreciate. Before she could consider her deeply rooted issues with locks and bathrooms, probably due to some unspoken trauma in her childhood; Felipe’s head appeared in the window again.
“Los tornillos,” he said. (The screws).
Becca stared at him blankly and then, considering context and logic, pointed to the doorknob and then herself. Felipe nodded. He then very slowly listed instructions which Becca later learned were how to successfully remove the doorknob from the inside of the bathroom. However, in that moment, all Becca heard was unfamiliar words with “tornillo” mixed in several times. It seemed that her brain was rejecting her second language entirely in favor of relying on pure panic instead.
“...que?” Becca replied after he had finished his sentence and stared at her for a few moments. (...what?)
“Los tornillos,” he repeated slowly and with a calmness she appreciated more than she could say in any language. (The screws).
“Si! Los tornillos!” Becca replied with excitement. (Yes! The screws!)
Again Felipe rattled off instructions, using motions to illustrate his points and again, Becca missed all of it entirely. He stared at her blank expression for a moment, sighed, grinned and then spoke,
“Ok,” he said and disappeared again. (Ok.)
The situation was now quickly turning from funny to a little worrisome. Becca was certain that she would eventually get out, but she was concerned about the damage her family was willing to do to their door in order to rescue her. As she listened to them speaking outside the door, so was fairly certain she heard the words “just break it.” On the heels of this thought, Felipe appeared again at the window.
“Hola, que tipo de tornillos?” he said very slowly, clearly dumbing down his words. (What kind of screws?)
Becca looked at him for a moment, she had understood this time but didn’t know the words to respond.
“Estrellas?” he continued. (Stars?)
“Si! Si! Si! Estrellas!” Becca exclaimed. (Yes! Yes! Yes! Stars!).
Felipe smiled and held out a Philips screwdriver which she quickly took and walked back toward the door. However, Becca quickly realized that she could not position the screwdriver in a way that allowed her access to the screws. This thing simply wasn’t made to be taken apart.
She turned to Felipe and frowned. He frowned back.
“El...no se la palabra...puerta...no...no tiene...no esta...,” Becca began. (The...I don’t know the word...door...no...it doesn’t have...it isn’t...). She made large motions to show him what she meant. The following minutes were consumed by Becca’s hand motioned and Felipe’s instructions but in the end, neither understood the other; the broken door wasn’t the only barrier at hand. Eventually, Felipe disappeared again.
“Rebecita? Cuidado,” her host mom told her from the other side of the door. (Rebecita? Careful.)
She quickly backed away from the door and a second later a series of loud bangs knocked the doorknob inward. Removing the doorknob took about thirty minutes, the entire process took at least an hour, but as Becca looked through the hole in the door at her family, she hardly cared about her dashed dreams of going to sleep early that night.
Upon seeing her clearly distraught face, her family immediately stared to comfort her,
“No te preoculpes,” he host dad said. (Don’t worry).
“No hay problema,” her host mom added. (It’s not a problem).
Her family then spent the next several minutes patching up the door and telling her stories of all the other volunteers who had broken something. They ended with a story about Ruby, her host sister who was currently living in Chile and had broken the bathroom mirror during colegio. The stories didn’t make her feel any better, but the fact that they were telling them definitely did.
When everything was cleaned up and back in its place (except the doorknob of course) Becca went off to bed, moderately concerned about the now knob-less door, but mostly happy that she had a host family who could rescue her from any circumstance, even the most ridiculous.
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