Do you have 4-wheel drive?

During my college days, when we went to the dancehall we all piled into one of my guy friends' quad-cab pick-ups. It worked well because we could all fit relatively comfortably; and it also worked well because occasionally when we pulled in the parking lot we were asked "do you have 4-wheel drive?" When we replied that we did (because of course all of the guys had 4-wheel drive) we were directed to the back parking lot--the mud lot. Had we been in my 4-cylinder 2-wheel drive car, we would never have been directed to the mud lot.

See, once I moved out of the small town and into the city I switched from a pick-up to a car. Generally it works out ok. However, when I hang out with my other country friends and drive to country places I sometimes wish I had a truck again.

At one of my closest friend's rehearsal dinner we were all hanging out at the barn when I overheard someone say "does anyone know who drives a black Honda?" Crap. That's never a good question. I interrupted the conversation to let them know that I was the driver and see what the problem was. It had been raining that night, and when I pulled into the mud lot (the only available lot) I had a sinking suspicion that getting out might be a little more difficult that I originally anticipated. So as it turns out, the person parked next to me was stuck in the mud and when they tried to back out their truck was sliding toward my car. "Can you move your car?" they asked me. Sure--except that I was stuck too. So some of my dear friends waded out to where I was parked, one got inside and steered, and the others pushed the car out of the mud (while I, clad in heels and a dress, stood by and watched).

Fast forward a year and the friend who was getting married has a baby. I'm the Godmother. The days before and of the baptism are a little rainy, and the church only has, you guessed it, a dirt parking lot. It looks ok though, and I'm running a bit late, so I pull my little car into the lot and run into the church. After Mass I come out and back up--no problem. Only when I try to go forward to I realize that I'm digging ruts. So I back up a little more and try to go forward again. No such luck. Stuck. Some of the same poor guys in their same Sunday best got out of their cars and pushed me out of the mud.

Let's just say that at this kid's first communion, I'm bringing 4-wheel drive.

An Alarming Incident

A few weeks after beginning my new job I went to "alarm system training" for the building where one of my programs is housed. I got my personal alarm code to our section of the building, took the cheat sheet about what to do in the event that it gets set off, and went my merry way.

Shortly thereafter, I hosted an event in our section of the building on a Saturday. I arrived early, unlocked the door, punched in my code ("beep beep beep beep") and was in ("disarmed, ready to arm"). No problem. The next time I saw the building manager she congratulated me on a successful entry, but admitted her surprise at my success. Really? How hard is it? Punch in the code, turn on the alarm. Punch in the code and set it to away, exit the building. In the few weeks that followed I became quite competent in using the alarm, successfully letting myself in and out of the building as needed (minus the one time I locked my keys inside).

The alarm for the rest of the building is just like the one for our program office, except it requires a different code. Based on my success using our alarm, I didn't bat an eye when I was asked to host a meeting in the board room on a Saturday. I got the necessary code and arrived early to the building to allow time to disarm the entire alarm and prepare our meeting space.

I first opened the door to our office, punched in the code ("beep beep beep beep") and was in ("disarmed, ready to arm"). With a bit of a nervous feeling I used my outside door key to the rest of the building and punched in my code. Silence. Uh oh. No recognition of my code, no announcement that the alarm was disarmed, but a definite recognition of me in the building meaning that I had exactly 1 minute to disarm before it would notify the alarm company and they would send out a police officer. I punched in my code...silence. I remembered that if the alarm was tripped, the security company would call the main phone line to see if an employee answered who could give an assurance (a code) that the alarm was false before dispatching the cops. Unfortunately, the telephone that would ring was in another section of the building in another security zone. For me to get there would require setting off another alarm.

I remembered that another option was to call the security company within the allotted time and tell them what happened. Luckily I got through, assured them that I was supposed to have access to the building, and the operator overwrote the alarm for the door I had entered. Having bought some time, she said that if I would walk back around to the keypad she would walk me through. When I walked outside from my office to the other entrance, I saw the group of women I was hosting waiting outside the gate. However, my priority was definitely to get the building disarmed so that we could use the boardroom for the meeting. I expected to quickly resolve the alarm issue so that I could get let them in. However, nothing worked. I tried various codes and various ways of entering them. Nothing. The system operator asked if I wanted her to disarm the door for the day, but that would be no help since the board room is in another alarm zone so I told her to go ahead and arm it. I finally thanked the woman for her time, hung up, and went to meet the group. As I opened the gate and they walked through my cell phone rang. It was my boss calling to see if I was at the building because one of the ladies I was meeting called her when the gate wasn't open. I'm pretty sure they were early.

I explained to them the whole situation and it was decided that we would meet in our much smaller office space since that was the part of the building that I had disarmed. It was a tight fit but it worked.

Mid meeting there was a knock at the inside door. It was another staff member (young, cute single guy) letting me know he was in the building too. I stupidly told him that I set off the alarm. Bimbo points for me.

After the meeting I decided that I would let him know that I was leaving and that way I could be sure that he would arm the alarm (since he had successfully entered the building). I wasn't sure what part of the building he was in and I didn't want to take a chance wandering around into an armed section of the building so I tried calling his extension. I thought the phones there were the same as in my regular office, but not quite. The phone didn't ring on the other end, and sometimes the front desk will just page us through the phone so I decided to try that route. I hung up and pressed "page" and the other 2 phones in the office started beeping. I realized that I was paging the entire building, so I hung up. After hanging up on him twice I pressed page, announced that I was leaving and hoped that he would call me back so that we could figure out the alarm. Recognizing that I was a dunce at the phone system in addition to the alarm, he came and knocked on the door and assured me he would take care of it. Whew!

A few days later I saw the building manager who had been surprised at my initial success. First words from her mouth? "Do you want to tell me about it?" I retold the sequence of events, and she told me that there's a special way to clear off the alarm panel once someone sets it off, and I didn't do that so the group that was meeting later that night was not able to arm the system that night. And they got locked in the gate. Way to go, me.