Gated Communities: WTF?

As a creature of habit, I have to admit that I hate driving outside my comfort zone. I usually only drive to school and work, and I have no problem driving to places I’ve been to at least once. I’m not a bad driver. I just get nervous when I’m in unfamiliar territory. I cannot stress that enough. Also, this has nothing to do with gender and ethnicity. Nothing at all.

            So naturally, I thought it would be a good idea to take up a second job as a freelance tutor, driving around to a bunch of houses in places I’ve never been before. In all honesty, I was doing pretty well—until I got the student who lived in the gated community.

            Gated communities freak me the fuck out.

            So I’m driving to this student’s house for the first time, and I’m a little nervous because I’ve never driven around in that neighborhood. Luckily, the place isn’t too far off the freeway, so it’s easy to find where I need to be, and it’ll be easy to find my way back. There’s no one else on the road, so I’m taking it a little slower because it’s difficult to read all the street signs. Not because I’m Asian. Because I have bad eyes and the signs aren’t well lit.

            I spot the turn and putter up the driveway and BAM. Automatic gate. The bad news: I left the student’s information at home along with the security key. The good news: there are no security personnel to interrogate me. I sit with my car idling for a few seconds and will my mind to conjure the code, praying that I somehow gained a photographic memory on the drive over.

            Nope.

            I heave my butt out of the car and punch in my first guess right as the first car pulls up behind me. Well, I think to myself, this could go one of two ways, so I smile apologetically and shrug, mouthing that I forgot the security key. The car pulls around beside me, rolls down the window, shows me his click-y device, jabs it at the gate, and zooms by with nothing but a stony glare.

            Okay, asshole.

            So I scamper in my car, thrust it in drive, and step on the gas. I make it three feet before the gate snaps shut—much more rapidly than when it opened, I might add.

            Muttering obscenities at that prick, I walk back to the console to punch in more random attempts.

            Then the second car pulls up behind me.

            By now, I’ve exhausted my attempts, and the screen has turned red on the console, informing me I must wait five minutes before I can try again.

            And the third car shows up and sits halfway in the street.

            And they both sit there, watching me.

            I can’t do anything for the next four minutes and eight seconds, and I already know the gate won’t let me through even if these residents did, so I wave them around and ignore their impatient scowls as they zoom past me.

            My dignity has been thrashed to the point where I am no longer afraid to call the family I’m tutoring for—again—and ask for the security key. They answer the phone with, “Oh, hey, Tori, you’re still coming, right?”

            And I say, “Oh, yes. Sorry I’m a few minutes late. I’m just outside, making all your neighbors block traffic because I forgot the security key.” Or some euphemism of those words.

            As I pull in through the gates, I begin to breathe a sigh of relief, until I realize that people are still staring and me. People who are not privy to the gate situation. Yup. I may have a red convertible Mustang, but since it’s too old to be “nice” and too young to be “vintage,” he just looks incongruous.

            First, people look at me like, “Who let you in?”

            Then, they give a brief nod of acknowledgement as in, “Oh, it’s the landscaper.”

            Followed by a double-take, “Wait, it’s six-thirty, and the gardener came this morning. Plus, he usually drives a truck filled with landscaping tools. And that’s a teenage Asian girl.”

            Ending with, “Who let you in?”

            Yes, those houses were insanely beautiful and gigantic. Yes, there’s probably less crime. But what’s the point of living in a gated community if you’re just going to be gated in with a bunch of assholes who won’t even open the gate for you? What if I did actually live there and forgot my click-y thing? I’d take down that dude’s license plate number and write a vehement complaint to the homeowner’s association. That’s what.

            I’d find out which house was his and egg it.

            I’d have a Bridesmaids moment and stand in front of the gate saying, “This should be open…because it’s civil rights.”

            But luckily, I don’t live in a gated community, so no one has to be gated in with me.
            Help me, I'm poor :(

~ToriannaLamba