There are as many cons to doors as there are pros. On the one hand, doors are gentle and sturdy and are always anticipating my needs for privacy, peace, and shelter. On the other hand, doors are abusive, gaslighting presences who do not respect me as a strong and capable woman.
You could say I have a love-hate relationship with doors. I like my cupboard doors, because they hide stuff that doesn’t look great on display. I like my bedroom door, because it closes me off from the rest of the house and muffles noise and gives me privacy. I like the toilet and the bathroom doors because within these rooms is where we are most vulnerable and the doors protect us. And when we have the house to ourselves, these doors are complicit in our glee of being able to pee and to shave and to sing in the shower with them wide open. But I hate automatic doors. Mostly because they seem to hate me, are always waiting until I am close enough for my breath to fog the glass, or my nose to make a little circular smudge before they open for me. And they never open fast enough. I watch doors spring open for others, as if they are a hand touched to a scalding stove, and I wonder what their secret is. What sacrifice do I have to make at the altar of the Gods of thresholds to be able to approach a door at speed and not have to halt my steps or snake my body through sideways? There is one set of automatic doors at the university that has never once opened for me. Never. I make a fool of myself every time, jumping up and down trying to trigger the sensors, walking backwards to get a run-up, as if that might help. In the end, I have to wait for someone else to enter or exit and ride in on their wake. I have developed a method of making this process look natural. I pull out my phone as I approach the doors and stop, as if I have just that minute received an important email that has arrested my attention and then, “realising” that I am standing in the way of someone else wanting to go in, I apologise and step aside, and follow them through the doors. I like doors which are labelled “push” and “pull”. I do not like doors which are not labelled. I especially do not like doors which are labelled, but include an extra booby trap. My friend and I go out to eat at a restaurant by the beach. It has just gone 5 o’clock, so the restaurant has only just opened. The sign on the door says “open”. Another sign says “push”. I push. Nothing happens. So, I figure they must not quite be ready yet. My friend and I stand by the window, glancing in at the staff who are milling about behind the bar, not appearing to be doing anything important. Eventually, after 15 minutes has gone by and nobody has come to let us in, I call them. “Hi there,” I say, “My friend and I are waiting outside. It says you guys are open, but we can’t get in.” The man behind the bar makes eye contact with me through the window and says over the phone, “Push harder, hon.” “Push harder?” I repeat. “You’ve got to push the door a little harder,” he says. I push harder. The door opens. The man behind the bar gives me a sympathetic look, one you might give to really ugly puppies, or teenagers who still believe in Father Christmas. I like bus doors. Mostly because they are operated by someone else, so I can’t be made to look the fool if they don’t open. I like that doors lock. It makes me feel safe. But I hate having to unlock doors. There are too many keys that will fit locks but will not unlock them, too many locks that unlock into the door and not away from it, too many keys that stick in the lock and therefore make me assume that they are not the right key when in fact they are. Thank goodness for the doors on the stalls of nightclub bathrooms when you’re wearing a jumpsuit and have to get entirely naked to pee. And wouldn’t doors be a blessing in changerooms that instead opt for curtains that leave a four inch gap on either side? But does this make up for how shitty elevator doors are? Does this make up for the number of times I’ve been squashed between them? Or accidentally hit the “door close” button instead of the “door open” button when I’m trying to be courteous and hold the elevator for someone, causing them to be squashed between them? I had expected the man at the restaurant to say something to me like, “Don’t worry. It happens all the time.” But he didn’t. So, I have decided that he is in league with the doors and they are all collectively gaslighting me. But it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, I still go running back to them. Closing my bedroom door is the last thing I do before I fall asleep at night. Ironically, doors are a thing which I can never escape in this life, so I just have to accept that, with strength, there must also come weakness. I am superman. Doors are my kryptonite. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. I’ll be here all week. If I can get out the door.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Love in the time of the pre-apocalypseWelcome to my blog! And good luck to you. What you'll find here are the musings, anecdotes, and anxieties of a young suburbanite in the 21st century. Archives
January 2024
Categories |