Um....

[raven]

Things are [slightly] better.
I couldn't find the key. So when my mother arrived, I climbed halfway over the wall carrying a stepladder, and dropped it down onto the path. My mother clambered over the wall with me clinging to the ladder from one side, and we promptly all fell backwards in a heap. Thankfully there was a nice pile of pine needles there to break the fall.

Lots of running around with keys followed. My mother refused to believe I'd tried them all twice, and proceeded to try them all again, twice. And then we invaded Pedar's study, and found another box of keys. Having gone through this lot, we struck gold in a dirty silver metal key. I used it to open the box. Inside, there was one circuit breaker. One. And a lot of cobwebs, sycamore keys, and some sort of nest. I took a deep breath and flicked the breaker. Nothing happened. And at this point, I snapped and started to kick the gate. I think I broke my foot. Oww. Did I mention it (the gate, dammit!) is made of wrought iron?

So... next plan. Plan E, if I'm counting right. Go back inside with my increasingly paranoid mother and sulk. And shiver. My mother had started to blame "new technology" for all the evils of mankind. I said something like, "Could you be more Amish?" and walked out, and walked straight back in again at her shriek of alarm.
"Someone's broken in!"
"Based on what?" I demanded.
"Look!"
Her socks were on the floor. They'd fallen off the radiator. I kid you not. "No-one's broken in," I all but howled, "'cause the bloody gate's stuck shut!"

Pedar called. He can't get back until about ten. He then proceeded to inform us we were looking at the wrong box. Not the circuit breaker box, the other one.
Yes, the other one. The other one I'd never heard of until today. Thankfully the keys to it were on the same keyring. The keyhole is at the base of the gate, one on each side. So, I flicked off the power, inserted the key, twisted, and then grabbed the gate bars, expecting them to yield.

Nothing happened.

So. Things are not, in fact, slightly better. They are exactly the same as they were. We're still trapped inside, Pedar's still stuck outside, there are still twigs in my hair, and life is beginning to resemble a French farce.

[In the middle of this, I somehow found time to do Chemistry. Anyone who can tell me how to find out which reagent is in excess when presented with a balanced equation and the masses used?]

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

oh dear...

can't think of anything else to suggest, really.

at least you aren't on your own, now!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

And misery loves company, as they say.

Ah, well, it could've been worse. It could've been raining!

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

this is very true!

[scarlatti.livejournal.com]

Wow, it does sound like a French farce, with the two separate boxes and all. At least you have someone else there with you now -- though it sounds like you may have to be the one to keep her calm instead of vice versa....

I hope you'll all be able to laugh about this later. (Maybe much later.)

*non-touching hugs*

(Sorry, don't know anything about Chemistry. :))

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Keeping my mother calm? Easier said than done...
Seriously, I do feel better about this whole situation now. Like you said, I'm not alone any more. And there will be more comedy when my beloved pater returns. Maybe I shouldn't have put the stepladder away so soon....

*sighs* I'm sure we will laugh about it. Just not tonight... :)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Gah. You have my sympathy. I tend to flip out when I'm locked out of the house for the two hours it takes my mother to get home, so I can't imagine what you must be going through.

About the chemistry -- agh, I know I know how to do that, although I think our school used slightly different terminology when I learned it last year (it's probably an American thing). I'll go back through my notes and see if I can find the procedure; if that fails, I can tap into my second-year chemistry friends on LJ...

Do you still need to know?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I do still need to know, yes. Thanks for helping! I feel like an idiot for asking, as it seems like something I ought to be able to do, but just can't, for some reason.

And as for the getting-locked-out thing, this situation is like that but in reverse, which just occurred to me. We're locked in - and at this rate, we won't be getting out any time soon. Hallelujah.

And come to think of that, if I'm never getting out here, I don't know why I'm so fussed about Chemistry. Nevermind, will do it anyway...

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

It took me a while, when I read your first entry on the subject, to figure out what your situation is -- it was the gate bit that threw me. For me, "gate" means something like the piddly little opening to my backyard fence. But I finally realized that you mean a gate gate. I'm a little slow.

It may take me a while to locate my notes, and then some more time to find the specific topic and remember enough to explain it, so, just in case, I'll put up a plea for help in my LJ now. I know of -- um, two people who could help, if they're home.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Okay... have found some reference to it in my notes, and am reconstructing the rest from memory.

First you convert the grams of reagents into moles -- using stoichiometry, I assume, unless you've been taught a different method. Then you look at the ratio of the two reagents that is given in the balanced equation. So, for example (poaching shamelessly from the notes), if your equation is Zn(s)+S(s)-->ZnS, the ratio is one-to-one.

Then you look at the ratio of the moles that you've calculated. If it's not equal to the ratio in the equation, then you know you have an excess reagent, which should be the one that is, um, in excess, according to the ratio.

This should be right. Good luck!

Re:

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! Will go and do that now... or, will print it off and do it tomorrow (having explained to said fuckwit of a Chemistry teacher that I couldn't do my homework due to... um... odd circumstances).

Thanks again, Leigh... *mwah*

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

No problem. Hope you get rescued soon.

[cucharita.livejournal.com]

I hope you're out by the morning. Although it would be amusing to see how school react to your excuse of why you missed school.
But I would like you in school to celebrate with me. Though I doubt there'll be much celebrating. I'm supposed to go to German conversation at lunch but I also has to do stuff for CCF with Ruth. Oh well.

[fragility-lily.livejournal.com]

Will you promise not to kill me if I say that I feel very sorry for you, but that your situation threw me into hysterics?

Re:

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You and the rest of the world.
*sighs*

[fragility-lily.livejournal.com]

I can't say how horrible I feel about finding really fucking funny...I suppose it's just the mental image that I have of you sitting outside of the gate with twigs in your hair saying, "You'd open for Hawkeye, wouldn't you? But noo, you won't open for Iona! Stupid gate..."