Today started out like any other day.  I reviewed for an upcoming test with my junior class, I did some lesson planning interlaced with periodic newsfeed refreshes.  I ate a great big lunch of pad krapow muu (spicy basil pork) atop a mountain of rice, dripping with the delicious yellow goodness of some poor chick who never had the chance to live. I came back to school, drank a cup of tea, and then it came time for my compulsory post-luncheon trip to the ladies’ room.

And that’s when my normal, like-any-other-day day turned. I did what I had to do (I’ll spare you the details), and then when I went to exit the facility to make my way to my lovely little M4 class for a lesson on asking for and giving directions, the door wouldn’t open.  Of course, my first instinct was to assume I was being an idiot.  I tried the door again… it didn’t open.  I pulled harder– still wouldn’t budge.  I even turned the knob to the left instead of the right (had I forgotten how to open a door?), but still to no avail.  I looked up and down the door at the metal stall locks running horizontally on the bottom and vertically up at the top corner, but sure enough I had not used those, thinking the simple mortice lock on the door knob (yes, I did look up the name of that for the purpose of this story) would do the trick… which evidently it had as there was no opening this door.  It seemed that when the button on the knob was released, the metal piece had still remained nestled in its nook on the wall opposite, leaving me helplessly stuck in the washroom with class starting in T minus…

…Nevermind. I heard the bell ring signaling the start of the next class.  I’ve had the experience in Thailand of being unable to leave the bathroom, but this is usually the result of something I’ve eaten… never because I physically could not open the door.  It was about this time that I realized that I would be making no graceful exit, so I started making noise.  First, a few knocks hoping that some passerby would hear them and acknowledge that it was odd for the knocks to be coming from inside the bathroom, but it wasn’t long before I had both fists pounding relentlessly on the door, calling desperately for help in between fits of laughter.

Finally I heard an angelic little voice from the opposite side of my barricade… “Teachaa? Teachaa are you okay?”  I told whoever it was (still unsure… it seems that they very politely decided not to remind me of my inglorious damsel in distress moment) to go fetch another teacher, and a few minutes later Kru Nok, Kru Fon, and Kru Ekawee had arrived.  They tried the key a few times, gave the door a few good shakes, and when Ekawee was convinced that there was no opening this lock, he went Liam Neeson on its a$$ and pounded it in, ripping the metal lock right off the door and a big splinter of wood with it.  I was free.

Buuuuuuuut then I had to explain to my students why I was late to class.  Of course it had to be a foreigner, it had to be me who went and got herself locked in the bathroom.  Of course it would have to be one of us clueless, incompetent little farang bumbling around here who had to be rescued from the toilet by her Thai colleagues.  Of course.

P.S. After writing this I had to add a “toilet” tag to this blog.  I didn’t expect to need one of those, but it turns out that my experiences here incite many-a toilet story.