Won't you be my neighbor?

Sunday evening I came home and was parking my bicycle in the bicycle "parking room" (for lack of a better word) of my building when I was approached by the woman who lives next door to me.

"I lost my key and I have been locked out since last night. I left my sliding glass door unlocked on the balcony. The landlord has been out all day. Could you please let me climb over to my balcony from yours to let myself in?"

I hesitated. She was obviously desperate and I felt bad for her, but my apartment was a royal mess. Underwear, books, clothes, paper everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

"I'll go take a look," I said. "Let me see if it will be possible to get over the wall that separates our balconies."

I rushed into my apartment where R was (he had stayed home that day). "Do you think it's possible?" I asked him.

"Hmm...." he said as he looked at the tiny opening that separates our two balconies. "Maybe if a person is super skinny."

R started trying to tidy my apartment while I went and got my neighbor waiting outside the building. She introduced me to her male friend who had appeared.

"You're welcome to try to get over the wall onto your balcony, but I'm going to have to ask you to close your eyes when you walk through my apartment. It's a disaster area," I pleaded as I felt my face turning red.

Three minutes later R was balancing a kitchen chair on my balcony while my neighbor's friend used it as a first step to step onto the air conditioner and then over the wall.

"I made it!" he said as he precariously scampered over the wall, the feet of his beige socks black with dirty from my filthy balcony.

Ten minutes later my doorbell rang. "Thank you!" my neighbor said as she handed me a case of beer. "I really appreciate everything."

Too bad I don't drink beer that much. I appreciate the gesture, though.

Later on, as I moved the kitchen chair back into the kitchen, I noticed my neighbor's friend's foot had left a black foot print on the white seat of the chair when he had stood on it in his soiled socks. Most of it wiped off easily, leaving just a faint outside of a footprint.

Truly a night I won't forget.