KURWA!

So here I am, sitting at my computer, chatting about baseball online, and there's a knock at my door. I open it, and it's my 86-year-old Polish upstairs neighbor Halina. Halina lives alone, and I'm not quite sure how she pays her rent, but I suspect she sells drugs of some sort, be they pharmaceutical or otherwise. Anyway, Halina's first line to me is, "Do you have a knife?" I look at her puzzled, and she explains to me in her best English (which isn't very good) that she has locked herself out of her apartment. Without waiting for a response, she walks into my apartment (which she's never been in before) and heads to the kitchen, where she grabs a paring knife, a screwdriver, and a corkscrew. "Can you help?" she asks. I shrug, always up for adventure, and follow her to her place, where she proceeds to ruin the paring knife, screwdriver and corkscrew trying to pick her lock and somehow jimmy open her door.

After about 15 minutes of swearing in English and Polish she suggests we go around back, where there are four windows, including one on the back door. she ruins yet another lock, while continuing to ruin the implements she has borrowed from me, while I just stand there trying not to laugh. She keeps saying, "You try! Could you try?" I tell her I will not be responsible for destruction of her property, but these words don't translate well.

After about 15 more minutes, I tell Halina that I need to go get ready for work, and to call the police. Oh, by the way, the landlord is out of town, and I don't have an emergency number to call a maintenance guy or something. Anyway, I leave her standing at her back door, looking utterly helpless.

About five minutes later, she knocks on my door one last time. To ask for a hammer. "Follow me," she says, and I'm kind of wondering whether she intends to brain me for not being able to break into her apartment.

We go upstairs, and I get the rare pleasure of watching an 86-year-old Polish woman break her own window and get showered in glass.

It was awesome.

I Have Seen the Face of the Devil

and his name is Premium Carpet Tack Strip.