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Survival 101: When Entering Through One Door, Make Sure You Can Get Back Out. Literally.

August 21, 2011 By Erika Zane

21 Aug

Otherwise, you may find yourself stuck in a 5’x10′ windowless room between a parking garage and a bolted “Exit” door with a weak cell phone signal, like I did Friday evening.

Did I panic?  Um, yeah.

Friday evening my parents asked if they could borrow Little Man for the night.  I had absolutely no problem with that and Andy and I jumped at the opportunity for a date night.

Hubby works in NYC and I had the bright idea to drop Little Man off around five pm and then drive into the city, normally a one hour drive.  Two solid hours later, I finally made it to Union Square in NYC, found a parking garage and parked.  Just in time for the storm that had been approaching the entire commute to hit (a few minutes before I pulled into the garage).

It was one of those basement-like garages with a steep winding ramp down into it.  It was also valet style, where you hand off your keys, tell them when you’ll be back, and they park the car for you.  I started to walk away from the car and look for an exit other than the crazy steep ramp that I was sure I wasn’t expected to walk up in my heels.  I found one door with an unlit exit sign that was pretty ghetto looking and locked.  On the other side of the garage, on the opposite side, next to the ramp and caddy corner from the attendant station there was a door that looked much more official.

This door had a bar handle that you pressed to get through and a brightly lit exit sign.  I walked through and there was a small hallway to another door.  When I got to the other door, it wouldn’t open and I could tell there was a lock on the outside.  That’s when I turned around and started to panic.  The other side of the door I came in, did not have a handle on that side.  I was stuck and the attendant station could not have been further away and he had barely noticed when I pulled up in the first place.

I got a running start and tried to open the bolted door one ore time, just to be sure.  Nothing.  I tried to call Andy and he could barely hear me and the call dropped.  That’s when I started pounding on the inside door (the one that led back into the garage) with my garage and screaming.  After probably two minutes, which felt like an eternity, the attendant found me.

What did he say to me?  “You scared me to death!  That’s not the way out, you have to walk up the ramp.”

No sh… Sherlock and good!  That was kind of the point.

I didn’t say that, though.  I just said “Sorry, I was pretty terrified.”  To which he responded, “You could have called the number on the ticket.”  At that point I just wanted to get out of there and was a little to shaken up to get into the cell phone signal thing, so I just said, “Maybe I would have thought of that eventually” and walked away to call Andy so he wouldn’t be freaking out.

The night following all that was amazing.  But just thought I would relay the valuable lesson I learned: never let a door close behind you without making sure you can get back out.

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: terrifying real life story

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Comments

  1. Diana @Hormonal Imbalances says

    August 21, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    I would have been terrified too. That is pretty freaky to think you could have been in there indefinitely – and someone should make the exit a lot clearer. :/ Hope you guys had a great night out!
    Diana @Hormonal Imbalances recently posted..Sunday Confessions: It’s not that easy

  2. Michelle says

    August 21, 2011 at 5:26 pm

    OMG! I am glad you were ok, that would have been very scary. Glad to hear the night was great! 🙂

  3. Good Girl Gone Green says

    August 21, 2011 at 6:05 pm

    I would have cried! I am glad all ended well and you enjoyed your NYC night out! 🙂
    Good Girl Gone Green recently posted..Stream of Consciousness: Tornado girl

  4. Amber says

    August 21, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    OH my. I’m so glad the attendant came. And glad the night went better after!
    Amber recently posted..Friday Inspiration – What and How You Say It

  5. Lori says

    August 23, 2011 at 10:32 am

    Yeah, i would have been pretty scared myself. I have a similar story i’ll have to tell you on Thursday. I was trapped 30 mins to 1 hour. I am also more cautious with doors now too.

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About me

Hello and welcome.  It’s been a while.  For Lent this year I decided to fast from the thing that took too much of my attention from what is truly important: Social Media.  Though there are countless amazing benefits to Social Media, after about a month offline so far, there are seemingly just as many negatives.  I never realized how much of my brain had been hijacked by it.  I’ve had so many revelations about how much easier it is to move forward when I’m not constantly reminded of the past.  But I still want to record my family as they grow at this ridiculous speed and, I’m realizing, so many of our family’s memories are here.  Those along with so many of the struggles and stages we’ve worked through.  Maybe in the midst of COVID19 isolation and my kids around me so often, I’m brought back to a time when they were too young for school and with me so often.  Writing here during that time helped make up for the limited adult conversation in my days and the overwhelm provided by my… little treasures 😉 My husband, fur babies, three fiesty kids, and I hereby extend an invitation to visit this little sneak peak into our life. We’re super flawed and broken and there aren’t too many dull moments around here.  And I promise it’s not always as magical as some of my golden hour, sun-soaked images would suggest.  There’s usually too much coffee in my system and we welcome all the prayers.  Come on over if you want to process with me.

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