I bought one, and then I liked it so much, I bought five more. No kidding! I sometimes used a chair under the door handle, but it was an annoyance to stand up at the kitchen table and lean down and eat cereal and bloobs. I'd spill milk all over myself even when I used the giant wooden spoon from my kitchen "pots and pans" drum kit. I wanted something I could prop under the door so that I could have my chair back next to my cereal bowl, where it belongs. So, I bought this. It sticks right under the door knob. I set it at a fairly steep angle...I tested it with the Missus, and if the angle is too obtuse, it just slides out of the way along the floor and the perpetrator comes in and grabs you and throws you around the room like a rag doll. That's what my wife did to me, anyhow. She always takes things too far. We were just testing the door bar; it was completely unnecessary to act like a criminal and beat me to a pulp in my own mud room. Anyhow, back to the door bar. If you put it at a steep angle, it sort of jabs into the floor, if you get my drift, and unless she kicks the door handle clean off, she's not getting in. I did that during our second test and my wife couldn't get in that time even when she hauled back and charged the door like a Brahma bull. I wouldn't let her in this time; I figured she deserved to stand out in the rain for a bit and cool off. Eventually, she hollered enough that the neighbors turned on their porch light to see who was screaming; she has this blood-curdling scream like a person that just got their hand crushed in a car door. She ought to be in horror movies, I tell you. So, I reluctantly took the bar off before the neighbors called the cops, and I ran into the bathroom and locked myself in. I heard her lumber into the house and complain under her breath out in the kitchen while drinking milk straight from the carton like I had asked her nicely not to a gazillion times. I just sat still on the commode holding a toilet brush in case she busted the bathroom door down. I think the only reason she didn't bust it down is that she's the only one in our house that's handy with a hammer, and she knew that she'd have to don the denim overalls and put a new door on. I honestly couldn't care less if there's a door on our guest bathroom. It's all her friends from her monthly book & wine club that use this throne anyhow; I take my dookies exclusively on the basement hod. You'll be pleased to know, she calmed down when she got a phone call from an old flame, and I snuck out and jumped in my Ford and drove to a motel for the night. I wish I had this door bar because I heard a lot of creepy people outside my room in the parking lot kicking beer bottles around and yelling at one another. It was a sketchy place, and I knew it was low class when I couldn't even find a Bible in the nightstand. But, for thirty nine clams a night, it beats the back seat of my Ford. Man, I wish I had a door bar, though. You know how it is, you just lay there pretending you're asleep but your ears are all perked up to any little noise; you try to make out what they're saying outside to see if they're talking about you or your room number. My mind was turning over like an old Subaru, and I imagined the group of hoods thinking I was someone else--one of those mistaken identity deals--and they'd bash the door in and then whip me with my own leather belt while I'm fetal on the bed. They'd keep on asking, "Okay, where is he? Where's Joe Thumbs?!" and I'd keep hollering, "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about", and they'd just whip me harder and harder each time I said it. Then I'd hear the only woman in the group say to the guy whipping me, "Buckle. Use the buckle." Since I left my door bars at home, I just covered my head with the blanket and acted like a frightened six-year-old. I might have slept for a half hour, if that, and even then it was only because I took three consecutive shots of NyQuil that someone left behind in my motel room medicine cabinet. Okay, let's get off my primal fears and back to this little Hercules bar. I also have a slider door, but mine has the track on the outside; if I used a bar on my track, the thief would just take it off the track outside, if you get my drift, and come in and beat me silly with my own door jam bar. But, being the cunning fox that I am, I put this on the inside, slanted, with one end under the handle, and the other against the inner opposite sash. It's hard to envision, but let's just say Mr. Burglar can see this through the glass, but cannot take it off. He knows that if he tries to come in, this bar is on MY side of the glass, and I might just pop out, grab it, and throttle him around the head and neck with it. No self respecting cat burglar wants that to happen. This is one of those devices that you have to be home to use. It works from the inside. If someone tries to come in suddenly, this will stop the door on their face. They'll likely get a broken nose from running into the door. I'll hear their wailing, and have time to grab a weapon--a clothes iron, a guitar, something!--and quietly sneak up inside the door and bonk them if they try again to come through. I learned also--from an old episode of Starsky and Hutch, if you really must know--to turn off the inside lights . If you forget that, then the guy sees your sock shadows under the door and will just shoot you through the door. He'll be so angry with that bloody broken nose from slamming into your door that didn't open like he thought it would, you definitely don't want him to see your socks! If you do leave the light on by mistake and realize it when you're already standing inside the door, don't have a cow; just quickly slide your socks out and widen your legs like you're doing the splits so your feet are near the door jams. He might not see your socks that way, and if he already did, you're a goner anyhow. So, ya. Buy one of these for each of your doorknobs. Stick them under there. Your friends will think that you're a paranoid schizophrenic, but at least you're a safe paranoid schizophrenic, tell them. And when you want to go to the grocery store or to the magazine stand around the corner, make sure each door has one of these jammed up under the knob, then just get on your belly and slither out one of those rectangular basement windows. No one, I mean no one, is getting into your house while you're gone (unless they slither in through the unlocked basement window, but most thieves are too chubby and too dumb to think of it. Unless they see you going out that way--then you're toast).
