Still Learning Things About My Place (or Not The Morning I Expected)

I’ve lived in my condo for almost a year now, and I do feel pretty settled in at this point. There are still things that need to be purchased, but I don’t feel like I’m in flux anymore. I am looking forward to buying the last few things I want to get so I can finally feel like all my belongings are where they should go, but that’s a much different feeling than when I had a lot of things still in boxes and I didn’t feel like I had fully moved in. There were things I needed to learn or figure out that are different about being at the condo versus my old place. Some of these are just technicalities about living in a place I own compared to a place I rent and some are just because I have very different appliances and things in my home so I have things that feel much fancier. But learning all these new things has been fun since I have loved being in a place that works so much better for me.

But this week, I had a learning experience that wasn’t really that fun. On the mornings that I go to work out, I have a routine that I follow each morning. I get up and get ready for my workout. I’m out of my front door by 6am. I usually arrive at Orangetheory around 6:10. And that gives me about 10 minutes before class starts. I’m there earlier than I need to be, but I like having a little extra time in case there is weird traffic that early or if I have to take a detour due to a street closure. I don’t have a lot of time to get ready, but I also don’t really need much time since I know where my workout clothes are to get dressed and I don’t do anything other than get ready before I leave.

On Wednesday, I did my routine as usual and got in my car to leave. There is a gate for the parking garage, and normally as you are leaving the gate will automatically open. But this time, the gate didn’t open. I backed my car up and drove up again just in case I wasn’t hitting the sensor correctly, but that didn’t work either. I also tried my gate remote and the gate still didn’t move. I got out of my car to see if I could figure something out, and I had no clue what was wrong.

I know that for safety, garages and gates have emergency releases so you can get out if there is a fire or earthquake. But I couldn’t find one for the gate. I searched around the mechanism, but I had no clue where it might be. I also tried to remove the cover for the chain for the gate, or at least I thought I did that, and I couldn’t lift it up. I tried texting a neighbor but I knew that since it was so early, he might still be asleep. I also tried texting friends who sometimes work out at the same time to see if anyone could come to pick me up. But once it was closer to 6:15, I knew there was no way I could make it to my workout and I called to let the staff know. They felt bad for me and said they would hold my spot until 5 minutes after the start of class in case I could get out of the garage. But I knew that wouldn’t happen.

I ended up just going back to my place and doing other things before I needed to work, but I was annoyed that I missed my workout. And I was concerned because I realized that if there was an emergency, I wouldn’t be able to get my car out unless I figured out where the emergency release was. So when I reached out to the HOA management company about the broken gate, I added a note about not knowing where the release was. The gate was fixed a few hours later and the HOA emailed all of us updating us and also explaining where the release was. I was actually so close to figuring it out. I thought there was a plastic lid that I needed to lift up, but I just had to lift the entire plastic cover off and I would have seen it. It was a stupid mistake on my part, but at least I know where it is now in case I need to use it in the future.

I talked to my dad after this all happened and I joked about how I was shocked we didn’t go over this when I moved in since he is always on top of making sure I know all the safety things about the place I’m living in. We went over so many things about safety, but somehow we just missed this one. At least this wasn’t an emergency and I needed to get out and it was just an inconvenience. And I’m pretty sure I’m set for all other emergency things I need to know about such as where different fire extinguishers are and stuff like that.

I know I’ll continue to learn things about my condo and the building as I live here, but hopefully they won’t be as eventful as this one was or won’t prevent me from doing something that is on my schedule. And if it took me missing one workout in order to learn an important safety thing I should have known about a year ago, I guess that’s what I needed to do.

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