AN INNOCENT WALK WITH THE DOGS

Beautiful San Pasqual Valley

Today’s post is another one of my many, many helpful hints on how to avoid an awkward and embarrassing situation.  It should be under the heading: Don’t Let This Happen To You, and you should really be thanking me.  I suffer so much for all of you.  Really.

Driving back from visiting my horse one beautiful afternoon, I decided to stop at the San Dieguito River Park staging area to take my dogs for a quick walk.  It was shortly before 6PM, the sun was still high and warm in the sky, and I set off with my trusty Lab and Retriever to enjoy the scenic view of the San Pasqual Valley.  Of course you know that all horror stories start off with someone innocently enjoying beautiful and seemingly harmless surroundings.

Lalala, so innocently walking along...

Aw nature

Feeling invigorated and looking forward to a nice dinner with my son, I loaded up the dogs and started my truck.  As I rolled toward the entrance/exit, I noticed a curious thing.  The gate was closed.  Uhoh.  This wasn’t good.  I was locked in.  

What the ...?

Trying not to panic, I calmly got out of my car and went to examine the metal gate that had cruelly and unfairly decided to imprison me.   I tugged on it, but it wasn’t budging and was clearly a motorized contraption which couldn't be forced open.  A couple people drove up and looked at me sympathetically.  The driver said, “Wow, they usually close this gate at sunset but this seems really early.” 

“But why would they lock it with a car still parked inside??” I asked indignantly. 

“It shuts automatically.” was the driver’s reply.  “Sorry, don’t know how to help you.”  She smiled and waved, then drove away.  I waved back and stared forlornly at the back of her car as the tires kicked dust in my face.  Lucky girl.  She was free and I was not.

OK, now I was panicking a little.  The gate had a sign on it saying something about the Fire Department, so I called them.  I clicked through all the automated buttons (“If you know your party’s extension, press blah blah blah.  Sadly, none of the options said, "If you are an idiot locked inside a park, press ...”) and I could not reach a live person.  The voice recording said to call 911 if it was an emergency.  Well, it was sort of an emergency.  I sure didn’t want to spend the night there!

I felt so dumb calling 911 and explaining my situation.  The nice emergency lady was sympathetic even though she said they didn’t usually get calls of this nature.  I apologized and explained that only robots were answering the Fire Department phone and I didn’t know what else to do.  She asked for my specific location and said she would call the Escondido Police to see if they could come help me.  She wasn’t sure they had a key to the gate but didn’t know what else to recommend.  She gave me their number to call “in case there is a delay”.  What did that mean?  In case I’m stuck here until midnight or they never show up at all?  I couldn’t find a piece of paper to write on, so I scrawled the number on the palm of my hand with a permanent marker.  I was getting scared now.  How long was I going to be here?  

 

I called my son to let him know I was in prison and didn’t know what time I would be home.  He told me later that he couldn’t understand a word I was saying.  Panic must have set in, turning my words to gibberish.  In the middle of my crazy ranting, a sign suddenly appeared in my peripheral vision.  Yes, a real metal sign with words on it, stuck in the ground, just to the right of my windshield.  Clearly I hadn’t seen it before because I had gone temporarily blind from panic.  This is a scientific fact that I’m sure many, many, many people besides just me have suffered from during extreme anxiety.  Right?

The sign said:

Here's the sign which is obviously kind of vague and invisible to some highly intelligent people

“Um, Kyle, I’ll call you back.”  I muttered into the phone.  Oh no.  Could I really be this daft?  (Don’t answer.  Please.) In my defense, I must say that the sign was off to the right, kind of out of my line of vision. Plus I had that Panic Blindness, remember? I turned the car on and pulled forward a mere 2 inches and the gate magically opened, freeing me at last.

Shamed and humiliated, I called to cancel my frantic and unnecessary emergency call, then got the hell out of there.

So there you have it, my lesson for the day.  When you are feeling scared and hopeless, take time to look for signs, because there just might be one you hadn’t noticed before.

By the way, in case you need to reach the Escondido Police Station, just ask me.  The number is still tattooed in permanent marker on the palm of my hand.