On wearing hats
The doorknob had been hinky for some time. A year? Screws were missing. Sometimes people had trouble getting in the door, the lever wouldn’t push down from the outside. From the inside, sometimes you had to turn and turn the knob before it would catch. I found a new handyman (our old one had mostly retired) to look at it. He bought a replacement but then I panicked and asked him to look for an antique replacement. He said he would. I didn’t hear from him for weeks. Then the inside door knob fell out. People could get in, but if the door latched, they couldn’t get out. (A neat trick! Ha. A good joke the first time you hear it, but now try to imagine how many times it was made over the course of one afternoon.) I couldn’t jury rig the thing back in. Or I could, but just enough to turn the latch to get out, but it would then fall out again. I taped signs up on both sides of the door - “please leave the door open!” - it was warm enough, but of course no one looks at signs. Every person went to leave and pulled the door knob out in their hand and looked shocked. Also like they had broken our door. I texted the handyman. The next day I was in Portsmouth for a bookstore owner’s retreat. The handyman texted that he had removed both knobs and found the new replacement didn’t work with the configuration of the old door. Also he implied there was maybe some rot? And the whole door needed to be replaced.
At which point this became not my problem. Sometimes it’s great being a renter! I texted our landlords. Their guy came by the following day (I was still away) and he happened to have some old door knobs that would work on the door. When I came back the following day, everything looked almost the same, aside from some new screws and a wood plate in the door, but I think mostly no one but me would notice.
When I told this story as it was happening to other owners at the retreat, I was surprised (but probably shouldn’t have been) at how many had similar stories. “Ah, yes, the old doorknob falling out conundrum” was essentially the response I got, with sagely nodding heads I suppose owners see all the problems - they are handypeople and HR and finance and operations and IT and marketing and and and. Whatever crops up, instead of panicking, we learn to react with grace and calm. Who would I want by my side in an emergency? A fellow bookstore owner.