At my high school all the outer doors to the school had the same kind of latch. Attached to the door jamb there was a small vertical cylinder that held a catch that protruded from the panic bar. Push in the panic bar, or use the thumb button on the outside of the door and the catch would swing into the recess of the panic bar and allow the door to open. I geeked out and drew a picture...
Obviously when the doors were locked the outside buttons didn't do anything. In looking at how the mechanism worked, I realized that it wasn't quite as secure as a bolt sliding into a hole. The surface of the catch was a smooth arc, and that little cylinder was actually made to spin on a central axis. Why I don't know.
But I had a sneaking suspicious that if you yanked hard enough you could probably pull it open. So I did a few experiments. I quickly found that various doors were looser than others. Some had maybe a quarter inch of pull in them; others were tighter than a bank vault. So I found a loose one, pushed it closed, got a good two handed grip and gave it one hell of a yank.
The door flew open and almost dropped me on my ass. It made an awful lot of noise, too. My friend who had been watching told me that the frame of the door actually flexed a little when it popped open.
Whatever the case, we got it open. For the next couple years if I ever needed to get back into school after a sporting event or something, I always had this little tidbit of information.
I gloated because none of my friends seemed to have the body mass and brutish hulk-like force it took to do this.
Anyhoo, fast forward to college. One day we're trying to get into the back door of the dorms and none of us had the foresight to grab our keys. I stepped up to the plate and try my hand at the old door trick. It worked like a charm. People are impressed. Later that night I related my earlier story of my door opening prowess in high school.
Then one day came along somewhere down the road where we were yet again at the same door and once again had no keys. I grabbed ahold of the door handle, braced myself and yanked the door handle completely off the door. I looked at my friends with a surprised expression on my face, then dumped the handle on the ground and took off.
I should have kept it for a trophy.
Then just a month ago, I did something similar with wirthling's new Saab. But I don't think he noticed. I hope the glue holds.
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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.
