Christmas Eve Eve At The U-Store-It

(I originally wrote this as an email last year.  Sadly - I still laugh when I think about it.)

So I nearly spent Christmas locked in a storage unit.

Seriously...

I ran to the unit that my roommate and I share to grab a few things that I need for Christmas. This particular unit is one where you enter a code to get in, the gate slides open, you drive through and the gate slides shuts. When you're finished you drive up to, but DO NOT HIT the gate and the sensor, that "never fails" tells the gate to slide open again, you drive out and life is good.

Turns out, these sensors DO fail.

Now I know from experience that you must drive STRAIGHT up to the gate. This particular sensor does not like angles, so your vehicle must be in a near perfect straight line before it will do its thing. My car was board straight.

After about 15 times of backing up and pulling forward and backing up and pulling forward and backing up and pulling forward, I was hit with the realization... I was trapped. To make matters worse, this particular place has about 2 feet of barbed wire going all around it. I was REALLY trapped. I'm spending Christmas behind bars (well a gate). MOMMIE!!!

Of course this unit is also not a manned unit; meaning there is no supervisor, worker or any other type of human on the premises to help me out.

I started wondering, "Will anyone miss me?" "Will the Christmas Eve Eve Party at the Stuckey's be the same without me?" "Will the folks at work just eventually turn my office lights off and forget I ever existed?"

Sigh...

Eventually I call a number that I found, explained my plight to the guy who answered who responded, "Impossible. Those sensors never fail." If Apple ever develops an app that allows you to reach your hand through and strangle the person on the other side, I'm going to be the first to buy it. I explained to the guy IN GREAT DETAIL exactly what I had already done FIFTEEN TIMES and he says, "Well it certainly doesn't make any sense. Try backing up and pulling forward again." SERIOUSLY???!!!!

So for time number 16 (17, 18, 19 and 20, because he thought that certainly I was doing it wrong) I backed up and pulled forward. I began to wonder if the gum I had in my car would sustain me until New Years.

Finally he says, "Ok, I'm going to tell you a trick but don't tell anyone." (Yeah, right.) So he tells me the location of a button, so secret in nature that not even the CIA knows of it. (FYI - it's behind the fake looking rock near the motor.) He tells me to turn it off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. I should hear 2 beeps and then the system will have "righted" itself and I can get out.

No beeps.

He accuses me of possibly being deaf (!!) and suggests I get in my car and try again (#21).

Still trapped.

So he tells me to try the switch again and just in case I'm deaf AND dumb, he counts to 15 with me.

No beeps. This time he even admits he didn't hear the beep (maybe we're both deaf, I wanted to SHOUT). Then he suggests that maybe he'll drive on over and let me out. YA THINK??!!!???

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!!