I’ll admit, before going through my first escape room, I was skeptical about the whole thing. Why would anyone voluntarily be locked in a room and only use their brains to escape? Was this fun? As the newbie, I had visions of my claustrophobia kicking in. Couldn’t I hide door keys in my mouth and slip out? Was there a fire alarm I could pull? Would an insanity defense work?
I also had flashbacks to a particularly memorable corn maze with an ex. Cold, lost, confused, and utterly unable to figure out the clues, we stood helplessly among the corn stalks until a tired zombie actor flushed us out and led us toward the floodlights at the exit.
Happily for me, the escape room was not located outside nor were there corn stalks involved. Instead, we had a brief introduction and safety training before walking in. And yes, I walked in and wasn’t pushed in by a friend, which of course I was proud of.
There were six people in our group, probably an ideal number of people. That gave us a cushion of smartness. Sometimes only half the brains were whirring away, while the rest of us sucked our thumbs and tried to look helpful. But three brains are better than six, as the saying goes.
Admittedly, I’m not the smartest person in the escape room. If I shake my head too hard, you can hear the rocks rattling inside. But still – I did put together a couple of the clues.
It may surprise you to learn that we did escape before the bomb went off (we were playing Timebomb, did I mention that?). We had a minute to spare. But hey, a minute was enough time to sprint down the stairs and outside to my car. I wasn’t waiting around for the timer to go off!