The Selby/Trunk Archive

THE FALL AFTER I graduated from college, with few obligations or opportunities to keep me stateside, my then-girlfriend and I decided to burn through our savings with a seven-week-long backpacking trip through Europe.

Jack Kerouac I was not. Despite the freewheeling nature of my life—no apartment, real job or sense of my future—I was a fastidious planner when it came to traveling. I liked to know when I would be where, how I'd get from point A to B, and so on. Perhaps I was compensating for my otherwise rudderless existence.

Because I'm also an inveterate saver of computer files, I still have my carefully mapped-out itinerary for the trip, and thus can tell you with certainty that this story took place on Nov. 12, 2001. We were wrapping up a four-day stay in Vienna. My records inform me that our next location was Salzburg, then a $35 train ride away (now $88).

Having lost our taste for grungy youth hostels, we had rented an apartment for our visit, during which we sampled Vienna's pastries (delicious), coffee (tasty) and opera (boring, at least to us philistines). The owners of the spread had instructed us to deposit our key in a small slot in the locked kitchen closet before leaving.

Sounded easy enough. The front door had a sign notifying residents that it automatically locked upon closing. But the overcautious planner in me decided to lock it anyway with the key—it just seemed so careless, so Kerouacian, to simply close a door when you could truly secure it. I turned the key, walked into the kitchen and dropped it into the slot.

It wasn't until we returned to the front door with our bags that I realized I had locked us in.

Vienna's most analytical son, Sigmund Freud, would argue that nothing we do is an accident, that even mistakes are in some way intentional. We could certainly speculate about my buried motive—a reluctance to leave Vienna, move on, grow up. I do recall, as I turned the key, having the vague sensation that I was doing something wrong. Something counterproductive.

I was nonetheless compelled to see it through to completion. This occasionally happens at parties—I mentally instruct myself not to say a specific thing and then, of course, blurt it out.

My girlfriend remained calm, but I panicked. To prevent guests from racking up long-distance charges, the phone in the apartment could not make outgoing calls. Both the front and closet doors were sturdy, immune to my attempts to break them down, action-movie-style. There was limited food in the apartment—some muesli and other scraps in the kitchen, whose only adornment was an old radio. I could see the headline: "American Couple Found Dead in Viennese Apartment—Victims of Young Man's Subconscious Self-Sabotaging Desires as Cathected Through Locked Door."

I recall, as I turned the key, having the vague sensation that I was doing something wrong. I was nonetheless compelled to complete my task.

A back window opened onto a street three stories below. After consulting the commonly used German phrases in our guidebook, we drew up a sign: "HILFE, BITTE!" ("HELP, PLEASE!") That was basically the extent of our German knowledge, so we shouted it repeatedly at passersby along with, "We are locked inside the apartment!"

It occurred to me later that this was the equivalent of two Germans screaming out a New York City window, "Help, please!" followed by something like: "Wir werden in der wohnung eingesperrt!"

After several minutes, someone finally stopped. The man spoke English well enough to understand our hollered explanations and the owners' phone number. But, as promised, they weren't home, and they didn't have a cellphone. He shrugged—I tried (Ich habe versucht)—and went on with his day.

My panic redoubled. We were on our own, the Viennese citizenry indifferent to our certain demise.

Now, I am not handy; assembling an IKEA stool counts as a major achievement in my book. Yet in the midst of my terror, I came up with an idea.

I ran into the kitchen, unplugged the ancient radio, extended its antenna and probed into the narrow slot in the closet. (Paging Dr. Freud!)

About six inches down, the antenna struck something: the key, resting on a small ledge attached to the inside of the door. There was no key-ring, so I couldn't fish it out, but I was able to knock the key to the floor of the cupboard. Then I swept under the door with the antenna and retrieved it.

I had over-prepared and over-planned for the trip in an effort to avoid any problems along the way. And yet this meticulousness had seriously backfired. I'd become literally imprisoned by my conscientiousness. But I gained our freedom with an improvised, jury-rigged solution—something I never could have mapped out in advance. To paraphrase John Lennon, travel is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Teddy Wayne

In a life filled with clumsy ineptitude, this will go down as my crowning MacGyver moment.

Ever since that trip, I've been a little less uptight about the scheduling. And I always think twice before locking a door.

—Mr. Wayne is the author of the novels "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine," which was published in February, and "Kapitoil," which won a 2011 Whiting Writers' Award.