The Door Incident

The Damage!

More Damage!!

Even More Damage!!!

The Forces of Darkness

One Hellacious Wheel

So a pretty interesting event happened this last weekend that I thought was pretty funny even though it was also quite inconvenient and disruptive. It is a pretty good tale though if I do say so myself. So here goes.

Basically the end result of this story is that my door has been absolutely mangled. Kind of like Evander Holyfield’s ear after Iron Mike Tyson got through chewing it like pit bull on a ham bone. (See the accompanying pictures) Here’s what happened. First of all let me tell you that this all happened at nearly 1 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning.

In my block my room is located directly at the bottom of the stair leading up to the second level. That’s not normally an issue. However, the forces of science and Newton’s three laws cannot be denied. The following account is a good example of inertia, mass, force, and gravity working together to destroy a doorframe. So what happened was, one of my blockmates who shall remain anonymous (I couldn’t get a hold of his lawyer for permission) had a few too many drinks that night. And on his way back to the block came across a one of those very large wooden spools that they use to sell rope or wire at hardware stores (or that Paul Bunyan’s mother uses to sew buttons and mend rips in his giant clothes). Anyway he decided that it would be a good idea to have in his room for a table or something. So he proceeded to roll this large, cumbersome, very heavy spool into our block and then inspired by alcohol and crystal meth (okay I made up the meth part) managed to get this huge spool up the stairs to the landing. This was a feat in itself, that thing was about as heavy as Tony “the goose” Siragusa and just as dense. However at the top of the stairs, my blockmate’s mental faculties managed to feebly present themselves for the first time all evening and he decided that a large, muddy, wet spool would not fit the décor of his room and also presented a fire hazard. After this realization the mental faculties called it a night and went to bed. From then on he was going on drunken instinct and pure stupor.

Unfortunately for my door, my blockmate decided that the spool ought to be outside rather than on the landing. It was then that the forces of gravity, mass, physics and alcohol took over. As he attempted to get this huge spool of wood down the stairs (which are quite steep) the slick and muddy wood managed to slip from his alcohol numbed hands and then make its rather quick and forceful descent. As Newton has shown, an object in motion tends to stay in motion until something else interacts with it. In this case that other object was my sturdy oak (I’m pretty sure its oak, if not, it’s something else as strong or stronger) door. We also know from physics that for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. In this case, the reaction was my hella heavy door withstanding the Herculean blow like a champ and not even denting! Unfortunately my weak doorframe folded like the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl and got absolutely trashed to pieces. What transpired in the short time of the spool beginning its descent and the door coming unhinged is this: The latent energy of the large, dense, wooden spool at the top of the stairs was transferred into very real energy crashing into my door like the battering rams that the forces of darkness (Mordor/Sauron) use against the city of Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings. Force = mass x acceleration. In this instance force won. Convincingly. Game, set, match, Newton. Hit the showers doorframe, and take your weak sauce hinges with you.
So I think it’s pretty clear that physics does not lie. My doorframe will attest to that. And I have to say, this was pretty annoying at 1 a.m., especially after we all stayed up for over an hour deliberating what to do next. It was eventually decided that honesty was the best policy. (although trickery and deceit came in a close second) I guess no one figured we could actually pull off the exceptionally watertight lie that would have been necessary to explain away such a lot of damage.

Anyway, this will be a good tale to tell on the high stool in the future I guess. So in that respect it was worth the trouble. But in case anyone is getting any funny ideas, like messing with any of my doors in the future, then let it be known; “If anyone so much as looks at any of my doors I will gut him like a pig.” That’s right, you can disrespect me, or my school, or my hobbies, but don’t you dare disrespect my door, or I will make you regret it every day of the week...and twice on Sundays! That’s all folks, I hope you enjoyed it! So if ya don’t know, now ya know...