The Tale of a Bathroom Cabinet

The bathroom cabinet in our apartment is the bane of my existence. There are three mirror panels on the front. The middle panel doesn't exactly stay in. It falls out if opened, bumped, or looked at funny. Sometimes I think it falls off just out of spite. This morning, a little bit more than that fell.

This is where the cabinet is supposed to be and, in fact, where it was last night:


This is where it is right now:


Yes, folks, that's right. It's on the bathroom floor, minus the middle panel and top shelf.

See, this morning, I was blowing my nose when, all of a sudden, the middle panel of the cabinet fell. Or, at least, that's what I thought it was. In actuality, it was the entire top of the cabinet falling over. The middle panel fell out, as did the top shelf. Half of the contents of the cabinet were also falling. I luckily caught it before it hit me in the head. But then I was in a predicament. Two of the screws at the top had ripped through the back of the cabinet and were still embedded in the wall. The third screw had ripped out of the wall and was still in the back of the cabinet. The three screws at the bottom of the cabinet? Still holding in the wall. The top half of the cabinet was falling of the wall, the bottom was still firmly affixed to the wall, and our tool box was in the kitchen. I couldn't let go of the cabinet for fear it would fall the rest of the way and break something. I couldn't get to the tool box to get a screwdriver to take out the bottom three screws. My roommate was still asleep (this was like 7 in the morning). I don't know how she slept through the racket of everything falling down, but she did. I was stuck.

I ended up taking everything else out of the cabinet, and slowly let go so that it was hanging off the wall at a weird angle. I could hear the wood cracking and knew it was in the process of falling completely apart. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed our tool box (many thanks to my Dad), and ran back to the bathroom before the cabinet could fall. I held up back up against the wall with one hand and took out the remaining screws with the other. I almost dropped it when the last screw came out. That thing is heavy. Doesn't look like it, but it is. So now, all of the contents of the cabinet are on the (small) bathroom counter, the cabinet is on the floor, and I'm not sure what we're going to do next. My roommate is still asleep. Maybe she knows how to mount a cabinet. I doubt it, but here's hoping.


Update: My roommate's boyfriend, Tyler, is a hero. He re-mounted our cabinet for us. It was mounted wrong the first time and that's why it fell.