Chestertown

I was out on the town with a friend/recent transplant the other day, when she approached the door of a local business and gave it a good yank. Ah, the telltale sign of a newcomer.

The door of course was locked. So she pressed her face to the glass to look in, and sure enough, people were in there and the lights were on. So she pulled on the other half of the double door–viola, it opened.

That was a ritual I often repeated when I relocated here, to the town where it’s typical that half of the double doors are unlocked. I don’t know why that local custom is the local custom. A friend of mine calls it the “lazy Chestertown idiot door,” but that’s an insult so I won’t go into that.

I’ve since learned to test by gently pulling–not yanking–every door I approach because I grew tired of pushing my shoulder back into its socket on a regular basis.

It’s a coin toss: the post office, the library, the bank, the strip mall businesses, etc. don’t unlock the same door consistently. They change it up, left one day, right the next. Or on a whim, they unlock both, which makes for a heart stopper you’re passing through one way and somebody else passes you in the opposite direction. I’ve also learned not to lean up close to the glass to look inside and see whether business hours are over. I’ve had too many close calls, nearly having my face slammed into by a door swingning out as people exit the good door.

So remember C-Town’s rule of thumb, when one door is closed, the other is probably open.