I want this to be known: One night a few months ago, I had a few too many glasses of wine and apparently couldn't calculate my own strength and SNAP my key broke in my backdoor deadbolt. I also want this to be known: I am terrified of my Landlord.

He's this Russian older dude that probably is the nicest guy in the world, but all I ever hear him do is yelling.

" On menya zaebel!" He screams outside of my window one morning about one of the tenants that always leaves his bike attached to the metal gate. (I only discovered how to spell that after I asked someone who heard him yell that another time what it meant. And it ain't pretty).

He's got a deep voice and the way Russians speak their words just seems like if he found out one of his more "scared of him to death) tenants just broke a key in his lock while being semi-intoxicated, well... that would be grounds for a full on screaming of "menya zaebel!". I just never, uh, got around to asking for help.

So my back door had been permanently locked since June.

I'm not handy. I'll admit this. Josh will totally back this up. If I need something done in my apartment that involves a screwdriver or, well, a hammer I will end up staring at the project for weeks before I attempt it myself and then screw it up or get frustrated and call Josh and say something like: "So, uh, I'll buy you beer if you hang this shelf for me." I'm not a big help guy. I don't like asking for it. Call it the "Big Brother" thing where I was the one that wanted to prove I could do it with out anyone else needing to help me. Homework while growing up, I hated asking for teacher help. When I had a problem I just wanted to figure it out myself and, well, whenever I needed something from someone else... no matter if I was scared of them or not... I just found it easier to go it alone.

Anyway, this broken back door thing has been ridiculous. This door leads to my laundry room. So, for the last couple of weeks I have been having to carry a duffle bag of my dirty laundry down my block and around the corner to the back alley and coming to the laundry room that way. This back door is actually the easiest way to get out of the apartment to all the places I usually go in a day.

The other day I just got fed up with broken door and I don't know if it was the super strong Americano I had that morning or if it was a whim of masculine spirits filling me from top to bottom, but I took out my screw driver and started attacking that lock. I had read online that most key breaks can be fixed with just taking apart the locks.

Within minutes pieces of screws and dead bolts and this hingy looking thing lay strewn on my floor. Finally I got the broken key. It was jammed in the lock and snapped off flush. I couldn't get at it. As I stared at my mess I realized that that was just what I had made... a mess... of my lock and my life.

Asking for help is usually something I do after I make a mess. This is something I learned in age that is sort of a repeat problem with me. I screw holes in my wall thinking I don't need anyone to see if they are straight and later realize the picture is crooked. If my toilet won't flush I will try to take it a part only to realize that I don't know how to put it back together. If I am feeling kind of frustrated with where my life is going in these recent months, I just dwell on it instead of trying to talk it out with people and let them know that I am going through a rough time with career and health and just other aspects of my life. That along with other things I'm just not a pro about... well, that needs to stop.

And instead of letting pieces just sit there, I need to ask for some smart people who know about these things to help put it together.

Mr. Johnson is my hardware guy. He owns a store on Broadway and when I came in with my bag of lock pieces and said: "Hi, um, I don't know what I am doing anymore... can you help me?" He smiled and nodded and within seconds took the chunk of broken lock out and told me exactly how to put the lock back on the door. And it worked.

After I got home, I called Josh and told him about it. He, of course, was not as excited I was about being able to put a broken lock back together. I wasn't expecting him to be.

But what I was really excited about was that I could open and close a door again. That just keeping it locked and ignoring it was making everything else not easy to handle. And all it took was asking for a little help.