Escaping reality, part 2

Our Escape Mission Chattanooga team.

I doubled up on escape rooms.

I wrote about my sister’s phenomenal homemade escape room. After her friends finished it, and we talked a lot about it – their experience, how she made it, what worked, what needed tweaking – they decided they wanted to go to a “real” one.

They’d been discussing them for a while and decided to try a new one.

We booked and paid online, and got our time: 10:30 p.m. We’d be with a group of three. Often the rooms require you to have a bigger group – you probably wouldn’t be able to solve it with just two or three people working on it, so they pair you up with others. An hour later, we were headed into Escape Mission Chattanooga to do “The Awakening.”

When we pulled up, we noticed the fence outside covered in keys. You’ve probably heard of the locks people put on a bridge in Paris. The idea is you lock the lock and throw the key into the river, thereby locking your love to that location. Or something like that. I don’t really get it, but I’m not into defaming anything. I’m more likely to take only pictures and leave only footprints. But, I digress.

We headed to the lit doorway and entered a beauty shop. No, really. It had the barber chair, basket with used towels, mirror on the wall, shelves with products. A scarecrow sat in the chair, an empty plastic bowl wedged between his legs. Skeletal mice decorated a large metal EM on the counter. One drawer was locked with a combination lock. The others contained a lease, empty file folders and more product bottles.

Shower curtains hid a door, and another door had a door knocker on it. We noted the security cameras. A phone on the table had instructions to answer it if it rang and to press twice.

After a few minutes, the phone rang. My sister answered. The woman on the other end asked if we had an appointment. Yes, my sister said, 10:30. The woman said she’d call when the rest of our group arrived. Lance asked if he could get a hair cut and shampoo. The woman laughed and said yes, he could.

We explored a bit more. Lance jumped when he set off the scarecrow, even though he knew it was plugged in and likely would move when activated. We all had a good laugh.

Our three partners arrived. The phone rang before we could even do introductions. The woman instructed us to use the products on the shelf to open the locked drawer for instructions to enter the venue. We quickly deduced the colors of the products and the number of cans or bottles corresponded to the lock. Some of the cans also spelled out “KNOCK TWICE.” We opened the drawer and got instructions for everyone to face the video camera, clap twice 👏, give the OK sign 👌and “muscles.” 💪 Nothing. Oh, yeah. We had to knock twice. I got the honors of knocking with the door knocker.

Our game master welcomed us in. We signed the electronic waiver and made introductions. Libby and Paul were doing their first escape room. Eric had done them before. Of our group, my sister and friends all had done multiple rooms, except me.

The game master gave us the rules. Pretty standard, from what they had told me. Don’t stand on the furniture. Nothing you need is too far out of reach. If it says not to touch it, don’t touch it. Don't take the doors off the hinges. (Someone actually had done that.) She gave us headlamps and a reminder to look for what can’t be seen. Then she turned us loose into a graveyard where we were supposed to figure out if it really was haunted or if something else was going on. We had an hour to make it out.

The idea of escape rooms is to look everywhere and find everything so you have the tools to solve the puzzles. I had no idea what I was doing. I knew certain things would be part of it – the number and color of flowers corresponding to letters – for example. I had no idea what to do with them.

Fortunately, our game master gave us clues that helped when we needed them, not preset clues we might already have figured out. She also gave us our time remaining since this room didn’t have a countdown clock.

We were able to work together, and I think everyone contributed something, although it was disjointed. I would have liked to know how all the puzzles worked out, but if you were working on something, you didn’t know what others were doing. If we’d talked more, we might have been able to offer input and figure them out sooner. I enjoyed it, though. (Oh, and what couldn’t be seen? There were large wooden dice attached to a board. You couldn’t see the numbers on the side facing down.)

We escaped with nearly 20 minutes left on the clock. It wasn’t the record, by any stretch, but the completion rating on the room is 35 percent, so we did better than roughly two-thirds of the groups who tackled it. We got our picture taken with our time remaining. Instead of stickers with a completion message, Escape Mission Chattanooga lets you choose a key. You can mark it with a Sharpie and then zip tie it to the fence. So, that explained that.

I didn’t choose a key. I don’t need to leave my mark. I was there. I’m writing about it. I’ve got my memory, and it's a good one.