Why I Love Ben Frost

A couple of years ago I lived for a very short while with my best friend. It was the best couple of weeks in that house ever. We baked cookies, ate all said cookies in one go, had pajama movie nights, had curry nights, had pajama mexican nights... You can tell we ate quite a lot. He was only there five weeks but it was a good five weeks. One day while I was at work I received and email from him. I was looking through some old emails today and found it. I thought it would be my present to the internet to post it because I love it so.


So...

I thought I'm gonna have a shave and a shower and do my hair and I'm gonna swallow my pride and go down to Past Times and apply for a job.

So I have a shave and I'm feeling good and think I'll take a shower now. I take note of the time because the Collin and Edith show has just come on Radio 1 - this means its just gone 1 o'clock.

My shower is just lovely and i wash my hair and feel all relaxed. I shut the shower off and get dry, wrap my towel around myself and go to open the door. The handle just spins around. So I try again. Nothing. Then i have a flash back. I see the other half of the door handle on the floor, on the landing. I remember from my childhood my mother telling me not to shut a door when the handle is broke - "we won't be able to open the door if you did" - she said.

So...I consider my options. I can wait here in my towel, cold and damp and wait for the first person to come home, but it's not long past 1 o'clock and it's possible that someone won't be home until 5. So that was no good. Well I'll use brute strength then, i tell myself, so i start charging the door with my shoulder/elbow/knee/foot/fist. It's no use. The frame is starting to come loose and every part of my body aches.

I sit down on the edge of the shower and think maybe i should just cut my loses and sit here until Mim comes home - she's only foundation, i tell myself, she could be home at anytime - but then i look up and have a bright idea.

The perspex window above the door looks like it could come out if i loosened the nails. I look around - what can i use - i find a disposable razor and with the plastic handle i push all the rusty nails back until the perspex comes out. Amazing! When you see this in films it always looks easy when someone pops a window and then pulls themself up and they're outta there. But when it comes to it and you're tired, naked, and realise you can't lift your own body weight - because you've recently eaten 6500 cookies - it's a different story.

So...i give up on this idea, put the perspex back up and fashion the rusty nails to rehold back it place. I sit on the edge of the shower again, and again giving up. I try shaking and twisting and pulling the handle in order for the latch to shift but all the results in is the handle coming off at my side to. Great, I think to myself, now I've got to sit here looking through the small gap, where the handle was, being able to see my freedom on the other side but not being able to get to it.

Time passes. It feels like days...weeks...years.

Then it comes to me. I need to find something which i can substitute for the door handle, something i can put into the gap, turn it, and unhook the latch! Firstly i try my little finger. I push it in as far as I can and then try and turn. It doesn't work. The result - bleeding finger! What can I do?! What can I do?! I check the basket on the shelf for some kind of tool. All i find is a handful of disposable razors, all too big to fit the hole i have to work with. I try my other little finger, but it's as successful as the first. I figure I'm going to have to try with the razors.

So there I sit, back on the edge of shower, using my teeth to fashion a tool the same size as the missing metal bar which i knew was on the floor on the other side of this god forsaken door. I go through about 3 razor. my hands occasionally catching the blade and my teeth and jaw aching. On my 4th attempt I'd made my best tool yet and started pushing it into the small hole. It wouldn't go in far enough. So i look around again for the best 'hammer' i could find. The Dove shower gel bottle is the biggest and heaviest thing i can find and so i start 'hammering' the razor handle into the slot. It's in as far as it can go. I sit on the edge of the shower, which by now was surprisingly comfy, and i slowly turn my disposable razor-cum-door handle and as if by some miracle the door pushes open.

I fall to the floor and half laugh and half cry. Immediately I go to my room and put some clothes on, I'm cold, tired and sore all over from my teeth to my toes. I check the time, it's just gone 3 o'clock. I've been sat in that pokey little room for just around 2 hours. 2 freakin' hours!!!!!

Oh well. I guess it's a change from sitting around and watch tv so I can't really complain.