Locked Out in Paradise

Mary Ellen and I are scuba divers, and one of our favorite scuba diving destinations is a little island called Bonaire. Bonaire is located 86 miles east of Aruba and 50 miles north of Venezuela in the southern Caribbean. Uncrowded, unhurried, and very un-touristy, (unlike Aruba). There are no nightclubs on the island, and only one very small casino. If you do not scuba dive, there is really nothing to do there except eat in a couple of exquisite open-air, by-the-sea restaurants.

Mary and I have been going there for twenty years, and each vacation there is just absolutely magical. However, even magical adventures have their not-so-magical moments, and therein hangs a tale.

On our most recent trip to Bonaire, we rented a studio apartment right on the water for two weeks. We had just unpacked and were scoping out the apartment, delighted to be here, loving the fact that we were on the second floor so that we had an unfettered view of the ocean, happy that the apartment was so big, and absolutely elated that we had a balcony overlooking to pool and the ocean beyond it.

I noticed that there were substantial locks on the front door of the place and on the sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony. The balcony door, when you closed it tight, automatically locked with a resounding and satisfying click!

Upon our arrival, the apartment manager told us to keep things locked up whenever we left the apartment because we were close to downtown Kralendijk, and there was a problem with theft. (No violent crimes like rape, assault or murder, but petty theft.) So that solid-sounding click! of the balcony door made me feel secure.

After we inspected the apartment and it far exceeded our wildest dreams, Mary and I decided to go grocery shopping, since it was five p.m., the store closed at six, and we had no food or drink in the house. After spending 118 florins ($96 USD) on beer, hamburger, bread, rolls, breakfast cereal, coffee, peanut butter, milk, butter, and other essentials, we rushed back to the apartment in order to watch the sun set into the ocean from our balcony.

We ran into the house laden with our boxes of groceries, hurriedly unpacked, cracked open two Amstels and booked it for the balcony. We both stepped out onto the balcony just as the sun was beginning to set. Mary quickly turned to shut the sliding glass door behind us to keep the bugs out of the apartment. As she did so, we both heard a substantial and resounding click!

"What was that?" she asked.

"Son of a bitch!" I shouted, and turned to the door. Locked tight. I pulled with all my might to get the two doors separated. No such luck. And there was no lock release, of course, on the outside of the door.

I looked over the railing to ground to the ground fifteen feet below. Cement and pebbles. I don't think so.

I looked at the clothesline strung across the length of the balcony. It's the thin, plastic kind. It would dig into the hands and cause serious injury if I attempted to lower myself to the ground with it.

I'm no Johnny Weissmuller. I'm no Errol Flynn. Ain't gonna happen.

I looked down at the pool. Nobody was there. I looked out into the street. Not a creature was stirring.

What in the hell were we going to do? We could be trapped up here until morning!

Mary thought it was funny. Her idea for escape was simple: She would climb over the railing and hold my hand. I would stay on the balcony, lean over the railing holding onto her. Then, when we were both as fully extended as we could be, she would let go of my hand . . . and drop to her freaking death. (I swear, she's a sweet, loving and intelligent woman, but she doesn't always think things through. Maybe that's why she's made so many trips to hospital emergency rooms for such things broken bones, deep flesh wounds, and collapsed lungs.)

...

Scientists are right. Women have less of a grasp of spacial concepts than men do. They may be better verbally, and their bodies are more elastic than men's, but when it comes to things like distance and gravity, they are just, plain, downright stupid.

As I stood there fretting about our impending doom, both of us wasting away to nothing until morning, I suddenly heard a sound from the balcony next door. I ran to edge of our balcony and leaned out over the rail as far as I could to see around the stucco wall that separated the two apartments. I looked into the neighboring balcony and...nothing. The balcony was empty, and the glass doors were shut.

And then I saw somebody closing the curtains on the other side of those glass doors! I hooted and hollered as loud as I could, and I banged my fist on the common iron railing. Then, I saw a face peering out at me from the other side of the glass doors. It was the face of angel as far as I was concerned!

He threw open the doors, and I explained my plight to him. I told him that I thought the front door to our apartment was open, and I would give him our firstborn great grandchild if he would come into the apartment and open our balcony door, thus freeing us from the prison in which my wife had ensnared us.

He laughed, and said he would do it right away. I told him to hurry because we were running low on food and water. He disappeared for a moment, reappeared in our apartment, and opened our glass doors. When we were safely back inside our apartment, I slapped him on the back and thanked him again. He then laughed and told me that it was a common problem in these apartments, and that he and his wife had done the same thing last year.

When he left, I turned to Mary and hugged her. Then we both walked back out to the balcony, making sure that we did not close the door tightly behind us.

We sat down in our chairs and looked to ocean. The sun had long ago disappeared below the horizon. We missed our sunset for that evening, but there would be plenty more of them to watch before we had go back home.

We just rested there, soaking in the warm, Caribbean evening, enjoying each other's company and appreciating our Amstels.

Life is good.