i knew i'd seen the laundry room before, on my way in from the back entrance, along some passage. and i said to myself well a laundry room always is in the basement i will just take the lift down to the basement and walk around and sooner or later i'll come upon it. so i went down and found storage areas and unfinished construction and refuse collection areas and more stairs leading to apparently nowhere and all the time the humming of machinery and finally i emerged into the car park, which was the multistoried sort, and no open walls. well i'd better go back the way i came then, and start over. and then i cound i could not go back through the door which i had come through, which was a one way door, and i couldn't swipe myself in, not having called harvard property management to have my id added to the access list. there were only two doors available to me: the door leading to the carpark, and the other, the only one that could be unlocked with the main entrance key - had on it the words "trash room." well, i'll just go out of the carpark and onto the street and start over by letting myself into the main lobby then. i soon found i couldn't do this either, for i came up to an implacable wall at the carpark entrance. obviously, i haven't got a device to activate the carpark entrance, nor could i find a switch to operate manually. i had no way of getting back into the basement, but i couldn't get out onto the street. i couldn't call maintenance either, for my cellphone was in my apartment. afterall, i was only popping down to the laundry. perhaps i could sit by a car and wait for someone to leave or someone to come home. this could take a very long time, i had a heavy basket of laundry, my hair was coming down, and i hadn't a book. i wandered around some more, trying doors and stairs which led to level after level of carpark without a way of getting in. someone is sure to come through at some point, i thought. even if it is intersession. i wish i hadn't thought that. finally, twenty minutes later, i find a door at the end of a musty passageway that opened - to my relief - into the openair courtyard. a man reading in the garden was startled. "what were you doing in there?" he accused. "i got lost," i said. i looked back and found that i had emerged from a shack that looked like an electrical closet. "i didn't know that lead anywhere." he persisted, but i dodged the question and got him to tell me where the laundry room was and was readmitted to the building. a very uncomfortable misadventure.