Brain Plaid

I like to think I'm a fairly creative thinker.
But my creativity was stumped by a stubborn closet door handle this morning.
I'll bet you other writers and artists will relate to this story:
The closet handle's been causing trouble for the past six months. You go to close the closet door and the handle falls to the floor with a loud clang. Makes my heart jump every time.
"Someday I'm gonna replace that handle."
But I stick it back on and promptly forget about it.
Until the next time it falls off. Which was yesterday. Argh!

I didn't have time to wrestle with the thing 'cause it was Sunday morning and I was in a hurry to get ready for church.
Then, last night I must've just slammed the door shut, forgetting about the missing handle.
This morning I headed for the closet to get my hiking boots.
"Oh no! The handle is on the floor INSIDE the closet."
Of course Bruce is gone on a business trip. These situations always wait till he's gone.
I tried sticking a bread knife inside the workings, hoping to joggle the thing open. Next, a phillips screwdriver. Then a tweezers. Even a bent hair pin.

I'm small and not very strong, but I managed to drag the tall wood ladder from the garage, through the house to my bedroom. I set it up and climbed up to peer down the eight feet to the closet floor where that dratted handle sat. Hmmm, I could get the tall stool from the bathroom, tie a long scarf around one of the legs, lower it over the closet wall. Then I could climb over and my feet would probably just reach the top of the stool.
I had visions of lying on the closet floor with a broken leg, waiting two days for Bruce to come home.
I summoned my grown son and he went through all the same tactics I'd just tried. He too decided that the only workable solution was to climb over the closet wall. He went to get his shoes on.
After an hour and a half, it occurred to me that we have the same kind of door handle on the bathroom door. I unscrewed the two halves, stuck the outside handle into the closet workings and the door popped open.
"Never mind!" I called to my son.

The solution to my little problem was sitting six feet away, but I couldn't see it because my mind was stuck on the "breaking in" mode. I wonder how many other solutions have eluded me, be it household repairs, relationship difficulties, or writing stories that need a better scene or more exciting ending.

Gotta get my brain out of the straight up-and-down patterns and into the land of fantastical, magical, right and left brain conjoined, talking in fourth dimensional language.