It's been a while since I posted one of these. Almost a year in fact when I hit a dear with my month old car. Most of these stories involve a car, funny how that works out, but this one doesn't.

At the end of my route I have apartments, they're in a complex with several stand alone buildings. I don't like them, especially being heavy and doubly especially since I have an infection in my foot and leg. But I do them. I have to go up a few flights of stairs in several buildings, but that's part of doing the job and I save it to the end because it takes me the longest to do the fewest amount of papers.

The apartments are pretty upscale. Technically they are luxury condos but I call them apartments because that's the layout. Recently they've been repainting the floors. I guess when you are upscale you do things like paint the floors. Last night they decided to paint the floor in front of the first building which also houses the clubhouse on the first floor. The first building is one of the few buildings that has a hallway where you can cut through from one side of the building to the other on the second and third floor. Usually I park, walk to the other side of the building, throw a few papers and cut back around on the third floor and head back down to my waiting car. Couldn't do that this night because the walkway and driveway was painted and taped off. There was a note, please walk around back to the rear for access to the clubhouse. This will come into play later on.

I walk up to the third floor and do my apartments backwards. I do my first floor apartment last. Now where I finish is on the opposite side of the walkway and drive that is being painted, so I can't walk around front to get back to my car, which I should mention I leave running with the radio turned down, I should also mention that I leave my phone in the car too. It's only a 3 minute delivery after all. I remember the note that says go around back so I figure I can walk around by the pool and get to the other side of the horseshoe and get to my car and a well deserved bathroom break because the antibiotics had torn up my system and I really needed to go number 2 and there was a McDonald's close by for me to borrow their facilities. .

I make my way to the pool area and the gate is open. I don't think nothing of it. I walk through. I make it clear to the other side, which is probably 50 yards away and realized that the gate is locked to get out. Crud. I didn't even know the gates had locks. I go to another gate that leads to a path around the inner ring of the apartment complex to see if that one is open, it is locked too. Dang. Oh well I will just have to go out the way I came and walk in the street to get to my car. This is where inconvenient turned into issue. The gate automatically closed behind me (spring loaded doors suck). So now I am trapped in the pool area. It is 5 in the morning it is 50 degrees out, I'm in shorts and a blouse. I don't even have shoes on because my foot is swollen. The fence comes up to my chest/neck area so about 5 feet high. It has bars that go straight up and down, no foot hold. I think, okay, grab a chair or table to help you over. Nope! They're all bolted down. I'm trapped. I call out for help, but it's 5 am on a saturday, ain't no one coming. I really have to go to the bathroom, my car is running, and I don't even have a phone on me to call for help.

fifteen minutes go by, I'm still trapped. I feel like a rabbit in a trap. I go back to the initial gate I walk through and think maybe I can shake the gate open. I shake it, a little hard but not herculean by no means. I happen to shake the gate from it's mooring into the side wall. It wasn't on purpose but the top part of the fence broke free, but not enough for me to squeeze through. since it was already broken, i pushed it and pulled another two times, breaking the gate free from the bottom to and managed to squeeze through. I am such a monster that I took down a wrought iron fence with my own two hands :( I will probably have to pay for the fence repairs., though part of me wonders if I can claim that the apartment complex kidnapped me.

The only good news, I didn't poop myself. So a minor victory.