Wild Wednesday- Only me! (2009)

The year was 2009 and I had moved to the States, settling down in Renton, Washington.  My Dutch friends, Henk and Maria, came for a visit and of course I wanted to share with them the hidden treasure I had discovered in Tacoma. We had a list of places to go, but finally we were able to make it down to Tacoma on a Monday.

Unfortunately, when we walked up to the door of Sanford and Son, it looked dark inside.

"Oh no, don't tell me they are closed!" I grasped the handle of the door just to be sure and lo and behold it opened. "Oh, it is open after all" I motioned to my husband and Henk and Maria to join me. I couldn't stop talking about how wonderful the treasure was...but I didn't want to tell them what it was..."You'll see, it is a surprise!"

"It seems rather dark in here." Maria noted. 

"hmm...yes a bit dark...but come on down, you'll be amazed by what is in the basement." I was busy forging ahead down into the soul of the building. 

"Is it always this quiet?" Henk asked. "No one seems to be around." My husband concurred and they spoke of leaving, but I quickly urged them to continue following me down to the basement. How excited I was for them to see the treasure hidden below.

It did seem strange that there was no one around and the place appeared darker than I remembered....but I brushed those thoughts aside. Henk and Maria were impressed with the find downstairs. However, the dead silence of the building could not be denied any longer and Henk and Maria said, "I think we need to leave."

Up through the corridors of the building we scurried. I reached the door we had entered. I grabbed the handle, only to discover we were locked in. Oh yes, you read that correctly, we were locked in. We ran around to windows and doors, but unfortunately we were most definitely locked in and the locks were such that we had no way of getting out without a key! 

"Hello!!!!!! Is anyone else in here??" 

Silence greeted us.

We found a card with the owner's number on it and used our cell phone to call him. 

"Rrrrrriiiinnngggg" oh great- the sound was coming from a telephone in the shop itself. 

All three of my companions looked at me like they wanted to kill me. I could do nothing but laugh....I do that when I'm nervous...there I was standing in a glassed in foyer, watching people walking by and there was no way to get out. So I began to yell through the door, "Help! We are locked in"

A homeless man stopped and tried the handle, it wouldn't budge. He said, "Just turn the handle on the inside."

"We tried, it won't open."

He laughed and turned away shaking his head. A man working on the street came by, and we yelled for help. He tried as he might to figure out how to get us out, but unfortunately there was no hope for escape. All this while, Henk was trying every door in the building. He found a door which appeared to be unlocked and he attempted to open it, but there was someone on the other side and she screamed, "GET OUT!  How did you get in here!!"

We all ran towards the door trying to open it. "We are trapped in here- can you help us get out??"

By this time, we had called 911 to tell them of our predicament. I won't even begin to tell you about the muffled laughs we heard on the line as they were trying to get their heads around our situation.

The woman in the room yells, "I will call 911"

"I've already done that." I responded, "We aren't here to hurt you, we really want to get out!"

"I'm calling the owner." She yells.

"Please do!"

I couldn't help the laughter that kept erupting inside of me with each new encounter. My companions were not amused by my giggles.  Just about then we heard the door unlock and the lady, visibly shaken, crept out. "Okay, the owner told me where he has hidden an extra key..." She moved quickly and retrieved the key and let us out the door into the sunshine.


Just as we emerged, the police car pulled up. I quickly assured them we were fine now and thanked them for their response. They shook their heads and said, "Well, please try to stay out of locked buildings in the future." I distinctly heard laughter as they drove away. 


My husband said, "Only you, Connie!! Only you could have gotten us into this mess."  Yes, this is true...I have a knack for getting myself into interesting situations....but they prove to be comical memories, which I fish out from time to time so I can have a good laugh.

Guest Traveler Story:- Journey to the Edge of Civilization

Guest Traveler: Theodorusrex*

Journey to The Edge of Civilization

Singapore 1990

The pictures in the glossy pamphlet of the Batam Island Holiday Resort looked inviting; beachfront position, swimming pool, tennis court, luxury air-conditioned twin share rooms, but we should have read between the words of the agent in the Singapore travel agency.

"Awww. Whatchuwannagotherefor?"

It was a short trip to Batam by ferry from Singapore, a tiny island of Indonesia just off the tip of Singapore and Malay Peninsula. The medium age of Batamese is 20 years old and the town of Batam is famed for its night-life of pubs, clubs and casinos. It was the latter where Shayne, a mate of mine, and I, were hoping to try our luck.

However, our resort wasn't in the town near the other hotels, it was right across the other side of the island through bush and off the sealed road and then off any road; through volcanic craters and boiling mud plains and the ruins of an ancient civilization; past several primitive tribes that had never seen white people before to a tiny clearing that had been hacked out of the bush where a hotel and a few bungalows sat - The Batam Island Holiday Resort. From the front, it looked just like it did in the glossy brochure.

A few local monkeys then came out to welcome us and look at the strange humans. They were cute and furry with white on the stomachs and light brown fur, but kept their distance from us. It was like being in some unexplored region of the Amazon. We checked in under the thatched roof. Whew! 40 something degrees Celsius. Every one of the staff had hand fans. That wasn't a good sign! Neither was the sign they brought out while we were still waiting to register.

"No Electric till 4 pm."

I looked at my Rolex copy-watch. It was 5:05 pm.

The bus that had deposited us there had already left again, so we had no choice. We had to register.

As we were taken through the resort we passed the pool, which had ropes across it, tied to chairs on either side. A sign hanging on the ropes said "Pool Closed - No Swimming", but I could see goldfish capering about quite audaciously in the invitingly cool clear waters.

The hotel porter finally wedged our door open to gain entry to our spacious twin share room. There was just enough room for two single beds squashed together in one room. The bigger room was the bathroom, which is where we had to put our luggage. Unless one of us wanted a shower when some of it had to go on the beds. The other room did have a wall air-conditioner too; accept, there was no electric yet.

Having "settled in", we went to look at the beach.

The beach! How I remember the first sight of those fabled shining oily shores. Directly opposite was Singapore. In between were about 60 huge oil tankers or cargo ships lined up and waiting to dock. Some of the crew on a big red rusting tanker waved cheerily to us. I started to wander down the beach towards the jungle but one of the hotel staff came over and grabbed me by the arm.

"Nono.Nononono!" he said, gesturing animatedly.

"Really?” I asked, letting him lead me back to the resort. "What's there?"

He looked around and then whispered to me.

"The monkeys!" he said, wide-eyed, and that was about the extent of his English. I couldn't get anything else out of him. I didn't know if they were aggressive or amorous, whether they might just take a little rabid chomp if I strayed into their domain or bands of killer monkeys hunted the forests for tourists to skin alive. Suddenly, in my mind the cute little fuzzy monkeys became horrifying mutant apes with vicious gnashing incisors!

So it was a hot and humid 40 degrees C; no air-conditioning or fans; couldn't swim in the pool because the goldfish were there; couldn't swim in the ocean for threat of being sucked into a propeller; couldn't leave the resort grounds because of the "monkeys", and no other transport available to get to Batam town. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, yet as night fell, I was certain I could still see the lights of our luxury Singapore hotel across the waters and bows of ships.

If you are interested in reading more of Guest Traveler Theodorusrex's work you can find them at theodorusrex

Iran -1985

Iran was a bit of a blur. When we finally did get in with passports properly stamped, we were told we needed a police escort. Someone who would be IN the car with us. As it was, the 1958 Morris Minor was stuffed to the gilly wigs with three young adults and miscellaneous things. We tried to reason with the border officials.

"Where will the guard sit?"

I think they understood when they peeked into the vehicle. However, there was no choice, we needed to have a police escort. It just so happened that 'The Bus' was going through-- this was a bus tour from England to Kathmandu and back again. The bus was filled with young people who seemed to be having a great time. This bus was the answer to the dilemma-- the police escort would be on the bus and we must follow behind. Our passports were given to the police escort on the bus; this was done to make sure we stayed close to the bus. Unfortunately.......

Just outside of Tehran, I happened to be driving. I must not have been paying attention to the fuel gauge. Everyone was sound asleep-- as it was in the wee hours of the morning. There was no stopping on this trip. It was a straight through drive. The car spluttered to a stop. The bus zipped off ahead and there we were out in the middle of nowhere. Stephen managed to get a ride on a tanker to the nearest petrol kiosk....he was back shortly ...well, let's clarify shortly....remember the last time he left us alone he was gone for five days, so now a few hours was considered a short time. The car was refueled and we were on our way. The only problem was....we no longer had a police escort AND we had no passports!! There were check points to go through. My memory may not be serving me correctly but I seem to recall gunning our way through a couple of those check points.

The nerve racking part of the whole episode was knowing the Iran/Turkey border was looming ahead and we had no passports. I still don't know how we finally caught up with the bus. I vaguely remember hurtling down the roads and finally reaching the border to see the bus in a long line. We did manage to retrieve the passports and leave Iran in one piece.

With the whirlwind trip through Iran there was not much I can remember. I do remember huge sign boards- propaganda style- mainly anti- western. Also, I remember lots of people on picnics. It looked so pleasant seeing families and groups of people everywhere enjoying the outdoors. So in the midst of bombing....war....people were still able to enjoy each other. It left us with a good feeling, despite the bus leaving us stranded in the middle of Iran.