Climb The Ladder

An oldie but….oldie.

Every so often, we human beings; may find ourselves in a bizarre situation that causes us to dig deep & try to find a way out of the mess.

We never know when these times may sneak upon us. They can happen at any second. I had one of these moments happen to me when I was 13 in the year 2002 (or 2003). It was another normal day, with me getting ready for another day of middle school.

I did the usual. Brush my teeth, iron my clothes, and wash my face. My dad was already at work & my younger brother was already heading to school. My sisters were enjoying military life for a few years now & my mom's passing was starting to become a distant memory (she died in 2001).

I would watch this show on PBS called The Berenstain Bears. It was one of the few shows I would catch in the mornings — before I had to go to school, during my middle school days. I checked to make sure I had everything I needed in my bookbag — before I lock the trailer door and headed outside.

Everything was good. I was good to go. I head for the door.

As I stepped outside, I see my school bus pulling up at my driveway.

‘’ Is that the bus already?’’ I asked myself.

‘’I got to go now!’’ I tell myself.

‘’Wait. wait.’’ I said in a low voice — while I begin to run to the bus.

The bus is already taking off from my driveway. I stopped running & in disbelief at what just happened. I missed my bus to school.

‘’NO!’’ I say, in shock.

‘’How could this be?’’ I asked myself.

‘’Did I miscount, when I should have been outside already at the road?’’ I wondered.

No matter now. I missed the bus. No school today for me. My dad was already at work so I couldn’t bother him.

I slowly walked back to the trailer, already thinking of the PBS shows I can watch while I’m at home for today. I get at the steps. I opened the screen door, then I work on opening the second door.

I turned the doorknob up and down. It won’t open.

‘’That’s odd’’ I mumbled to myself.

I tried turning the doorknob again. The same result happened.

Now, I’m slowly starting to panic.

I try to open the door one more time, turning the doorknob even harder than I’ve ever had. Still, no luck getting in. The reality of the situation starts to sink in.

‘’Did I lock myself out?’’ I asked myself.

‘’How could this happen?’’ I add feeling confused.

Not only did I miss my bus for school, but I was also locked out of the trailer on a partly cloudy cold day in North Carolina. This wasn’t good. After wrestling with my situation for 20 minutes, I start to see if there’s a way inside the trailer.

I head to the back of the trailer to see if I can enter through the back door. I try to push the door over to the right. That strategy doesn’t work. The back door was locked too. I continued to look around; desperately trying to find a way back inside the trailer.

After what felt like 30 more minutes looking for a solution, I noticed the bathroom window was opened a little bit. I could try getting inside the trailer that way, but, the window was too high for me to reach by foot. I needed something that could help me get to it.

The only thing that came to me that would work was using my dad’s orange ladder. He hadn’t used that ladder since he was working on the trailer a few years ago. I hope he still had it here. I checked on the left side of the trailer to see if it was there.

Thankfully, it was there! I was so relieved to see it. Now, I just hoped that the plan I had in my 13-year old mind would work how I envision it in my head.

I don’t know what made me think to use my dad’s ladder. I’m just glad the thought came up. This was desperation time. My hands were getting numb and hurting from feeling the heavy cold. I grabbed one side of the orange tall-looking ladder.

‘’Whoa, this thing is kinda heavy!’’ I thought.

So I drag the ladder to the bathroom window. When I got there, I put the ladder on the ground. After contemplating, I grabbed one side of the ladder and leaned it against the trailer. Once I got it to a good position, I pushed the rest of the ladder up, to get it right at the tip of the bathroom window.

Perfect! The ladder is up by the bathroom window. Now, I just had to climb on it to see if I could open the window enough to let me in? I start to climb the ladder. I noticed with each step I climb, how scary the ground looks from up high. I get nervous. My fear of heights takes over & have me climb down the ladder, so I don’t slip and hurt my bones.

I need a few minutes to psyche myself into going all the way on the next try. After practicing having my feet on the ladder for a few minutes, I get comfortable reaching all the way to the bathroom window.

‘’This time, I’m getting inside that trailer’’ I tell myself with purpose.

I climb up the ladder again very slowly. I don’t look down or around this time, my focus is at the window. My determination blocks out my fear of heights. Each step has me feeling more confident about reaching the finish line.

I reached the top of the ladder at the window! I can see the bathtub, the sink & parts of the hallway by the bathroom door.

‘’I may be able to get inside after all!’’ I tell myself with excitement.

I have one hand on the window, keeping it open as wide as it will go, while I put my head through it. I can taste victory. It’s so close, but still so far away. I try to put the top half of my body through the window very slowly. So far, the process has been very smooth, until the window fell back to its normal position, landing on the back of my stomach.

There was no going back now. Half of my body was stuck inside the trailer & the other half was still on the ladder. While I slowly continued to push my whole body inside, my legs started to lose my footing on the ladder. I ended up kicking the ladder to the ground.

Now, I HAD to get my whole body through the window.

I’ve never used my body like this before, but I needed to get out of the cold and into the warm comforts of the trailer.

I begin to use all the strength I could, to will the rest of my body through the window. I wiggled my way until I felt my entire body together on the window.

I couldn’t believe it. The plan was a success! Now, the only part was to fall inside the white bathtub. This was going to sting, but it needed to be done to finish the task. So after counting a few numbers, I fell into the bathtub slowly, like a wrestler landing on another opponent in the ring.

It didn’t hurt at all like I thought it would. After the fall, I sat in the bathtub, letting out a long sigh. I’m so grateful to finally be out of the cold & inside the trailer.

I may have gotten in trouble for missing school. I don’t even remember that part honestly. But at the moment, the unthinkable was over, thanks to the ladder.

I enjoyed taking a nice hot bath though, after putting the ladder back to where it was.