In Which Laurel Learns A Very Valuable Lesson

Until Tuesday, I had assumptions about certain aspects of the world -- mainly cemeteries.

1. Grave robbing was a 19^th century problem. You know, something that ended with Dickens. I’d imagined grave robbing in the same age as street urchins, chimney sweeps and people who said, “Blimey, I’d like to get my hands on that ring.”
2. Cemeteries were like parks. They closed at dark, and while it was encouraged that you leave at sunset, there was no one to really enforce that rule. All horror movies (not exactly the best source I guess, considering that I don’t want to be beheaded by a ghost) and Supernatural have led me to believe that you can always get into -- and out of -- a cemetery.
3. Other than teenagers wanting to drink, fool around or mess with urban legends, no one goes into a cemetery after dark anyway, right, so again, probably not too much security.

Based on these assumptions, I didn’t pay too much attention when I went to Elmwood, Birmingham’s main cemetery. Without getting too deep into this, I went to put some flowers on my great-grandmother’s grave. She lived until I was 13. My paternal grandparents passed away before I was born.

Anyway, I had no idea how many rules cemeteries had. (I mean, really, other than those beheading ghosts, I couldn’t think of much that could go wrong there.) I was very wrong.

First, there are rules about flowers. I’d tell you what those rules are, but the list was so long (10 different points!) that I got lazy. As per usual, I just did what I wanted to do.

I also suppose that when I got distracted by the many, many flower rules – and let’s not even get into regulations about other acceptable mementos – I didn’t see that the cemetery had hours.

It never occurred to me that a cemetery would have hours of business. (Please refer to point #2 at the top. I really kind of thought I was at a park.)

You can imagine my surprise/abject fear when I decided to leave the cemetery only to see large, locked gates in front of me.

Next to the locked gates was a sign that said, “Gates close promptly at 5:30.”

“Now you tell me,” I thought. It was 5:45.

There were no cars around. The office closed at 4:30 (that I did see when I arrived). I grabbed the map that I had gotten and decided to drive around to all of the other exits figuring that at least one would be open in case of emergency or have a really lackluster lock.

This was not the case.

Around this time, I might have been driving around like a mad woman wondering how I would explain to anyone that I had locked myself in a cemetery without ending up in even more therapy. Would I call my mom, have her pick me up, scale the fence and come back for my car in the morning? Would the SO even believe me when I told him where I was? Would I actually have to sleep in my car here?

Anxiety at this point: 11 on a scale of 1-10.

I was circling back towards the main office when I saw a car at the gate. I pulled directly behind him like there was nothing at all odd about the two of us heading out just before 6:00 p.m.

It turns out that I was behind the security guard, so while I escaped the cemetery, I also got a very stern lecture about reading signs and obeying rules.

I was so glad to be out of there, I would have taken an hour-long tongue-lashing. Fortunately, elderly security guards from cemeteries just want to go home, too.

And now I know – grave-robbing is still a very real concern so cemeteries have hours. (I might be the only person who didn't know this considering that when I tried to recount my harrowing evening to the SO, he said, "I mean, I knew cemeteries closed.")

This is one of the few mistakes I plan to never, ever make again. Maybe, just maybe, doing what I want to do without reading all the way to the end of the pamphlet isn’t always going to work out.