Behind bars

This evening I went for a meal with colleagues to mark my last day at work. As I said my farewells the low sun was emerging from watery clouds and I thought I'd walk around the meadow by the river before going home. Through the car park, across the small bridge over the stream, into the waterlogged grass, lost in thought for a bit, back to the bridge... and there in front of me was a locked gate.

I stood on the other side of these bars and wondered what to do. The tops were too spiky and high for me to climb over and at the sides of the gate were walls with no grip. The only route was back over the bridge and a wade through the deep and fast-flowing stream. Not a great idea.

I called to a woman in the car park to ask whether she'd seen the key-holder. No she hadn't. I was still amused at what I'd done; she was appalled. She could see the sign I'd failed to spot on the way in saying that Oxford City Council locked the gate (I hadn't even seen the gate) at 9pm, so - brilliant smartphones - I found and rang the Council's out-of-hours number. After I'd been through two rounds of pressing number-options, and two lots of being told I would be recorded for training purposes, a human answered.
Me: 'I'm locked into Angel and Greyhound Meadow. Is it possible to contact someone to get me out?'
Him: 'Where?
Me: 'Angel and Greyhound Meadow, off St Clements car park.'
Him: 'Is that G-R-A-Y or G-R-E-Y?'
Me: 'What?! Does it matter? G-R-E-Y.
Him: I don't know where that is.

Turned out he was in Cheshire (thanks, Oxford out-of-hours service), didn't have the right to damage other people's property, and needed to talk to his supervisor.

Kind woman on the other side wanted to phone 999. I told her it wasn't an emergency - yet -  though I guessed I could try to climb over then she'd be justified in calling an ambulance. I found a non-emergency police number. But it turned out they too don't have the right to damage other people's property.

Kind woman on the other side told me if I wouldn't phone 999 she would, because she wasn't prepared to leave me alone in a waterlogged meadow nor was she prepared to spend the night in a dark car park. She phoned, and asked for the fire brigade because they are practical, know how to solve problems without damaging property, and have useful things like ladders.

We were told they would ring back in 10 minutes. 12 minutes later they did. They had located the man with the key who was coming back to unlock.

I braced myself to be yelled at for being the idiot I was, but when he arrived kind woman greeted him as a knight in shining armour, and he just apologised to me for having locked me in.

0/10 to the city council
0/10 to the police
10/10 to the 999 staff - how did they find the keyholder so fast?
A big hug to the keyholder
11/10 and a big hug to the lovely stranger who wouldn't abandon me
And, of course, 0/10 to me.

11 hours later - I receive a message on my voicemail from the police. I need to go home and come and collect my car in the morning. Hmm. Was I that incoherent? Better ask them to listen to the 'recording for training purposes'.

PS - Locking parks. This one isn't even a park. Not a flower to steal nor a swing to play on. It's a waterlogged meadow.