In which Cherry locks herself in

On Tuesday we went to the Town Hall (Hôtel de Ville) to pay for lunches for the month of September. Cherry wasn't feeling well, but I thought that the fresh air would be good for her, so I stuck her on my back, and off we went. Once we got there, my mom waited outside the building with Sapphire and Ezio while Cherry and I went up the stairs to the schools department. We waited in line for a few minutes and paid the bill.

Then, Cherry decided that she needed to use the restroom. We headed in to the bathroom, and she decided that she wanted to use a stall by herself, and I could use one by myself. Since the bathroom didn't seem likely to get a whole lot of use (it's basically an office building), I told her that was fine, and she headed in. Of course, once she was in the bathroom, she turned the lock, because that's what one does in a public restroom stall. (An important note: while American bathroom stalls generally have doors that stop about a foot above the floor, and have plenty of space above them as well, European stalls have doors that go from the floor to the door-frame.) After a few minutes she told me that she couldn't figure out how to flush the potty, so I suggested that she open the door so that I could help her. You can probably see where this is going. She couldn't figure out how to unlock the door. I asked her to turn it as far as she could one direction, then the other. The door remained locked. Next, I looked at the lock to see how easy it would be to open. It needed a screwdriver or something like that. I tried the end of one of my keys, but that didn't work at all.

So I told Cherry to stay where she was (in retrospect, that was foolish. Where would she have gone? Into the toilet?), while I went back to the schools office to ask for help. They weren't sure how to get the door open either, but 3 of them rushed off in different directions to try to figure things out. A fourth came into the bathroom with me, and after looking at the door for a minute suggested that I pull it closed as hard as I could, and then ask Cherry to turn the lock again. The lock snicked back, and a sobbing Cherry tumbled out. We thanked the people who had helped us, and headed back outside to meet everyone else.