Locked Out In My Pants

FUCKING JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES!!

They knocked on my door about 40 minutes ago, after my wife had previously engaged them in conversation when they'd come knocking while I was out.

I was naked having just come out of the shower, hurriedly threw some boxershorts on and I went downstairs to open the door to see who it was. As I was taking a while they rang again, and so hurrying out of my flat in case it was important, I heard an ominous bang behind me. Oh fuck! Please don't let that be the door locking!

After hurriedly telling the God botherers to beat it (in far too polite a fashion considering), I returned to have my worst fears confirmed. I was locked out of my flat, wearing just underpants with my wife not due home for nearly 6 hours.

I firstly cursed the JW's and their cold black doorknocking hearts, then began to assess the situation. No keys...car or house. No phone. No idea of what my wife's phone number is apart from 0752-something. Then I looked up.

My bathroom window was open. If I could only find a ladder. Pondering this possibility I ran in to the lady in the ground floor flat on her way out to work. She was sympathetic and offered to lend me her phone an a Thompson directory, but where to start.

Then it occured to us...the neighbours! So we quickly began knocking on doors. The old lady next door was out..but would she have a ladder anyway at 94?

So, in my pants I proceded to explore other neighbours houses, and started with the bloke opposite who had a big old character cottage with a large barn-style shed.

I crept tentatively barefoot over his gravel drive way, and knocked on his door. He was a fairly well-built 50-something bloke with an awful cough, which just got worse (presumably with amusement) as I blurted out,

"Hello, I'm your next-door neighbour. Excuse the state of undress, but I've just locked myself out of my flat and the only way back in is through a first floor window. Do you have a ladder I can borrow?"

Coughing and spluttering, he paused to consider asking me for ID but supposed correctly that even a burgurlar wouldn't be that desparate. He led me to a shed where he had a ladder big enough to get me to the second floor, let alone the first.

We took the ladder over the road and I climbed up to the window, which was not only open but off the latch too, which i climbed in and jumped through into my bathroom.

One thing I have learned here is that neighbours don't mix that often in this country but they are still usually prepared to help people out if they knock. That feeling of absolute helplessness as I realised I might be trapped in my hallway for 6 hours in my pants has a) made me hate JWs even more than I did before, and b) reminded me not to go out in my pants without leaving the latch off first.