Today, March 8th of 2024, at 10:21am I almost succumbed to my death at 24 Hour Fitness.
And no, it’s not because my worst nightmare of breaking my back and/or falling during a heavy squat came true.
(Although I did see that happen one time a few years back at my gym. A guy was squatting at least 3 plates. One second he was in a deep sit and the next split second there was a sickening bang. He was no longer squatting but laying flat on his back with the barbell rolling in front–not moving a smidge. 😳 He had to be taken out in a stretcher. This memory still haunts me–none of the gym regulars touched that bad juju rack for at least 3-months…)
Thankfully, that awful description did not happen to me, but it was nearly worse.
Here I am, it’s 10:00 am at my 24-Hour Fitness on a Friday. I love my morning gym sessions on Fridays because I usually have a lighter workload since I don’t normally schedule Friday calls. And today, of ALL days in the past MONTHS, I don’t have a single thing on my calendar until I pick the kids up from school, except for a quick consultation call around lunch. This means 1) an amazing workout and 2) an easy-breezy Friday.
The morning was a wee bit out of my normal routine of:
waking up at 6:30 am
take the kids to school (which is a 1.5-hour commute total between both schools 😖)
head straight to the gym after drop-off, which lands me there around 8:30 am. every. single. morning.
But today, my fiancé (who will be my husband in 43 DAYS OMG!!!!!) is heading to Miami for his bachelor trip this weekend to see UFC 299 (I’m actually very jealous.)
So I dropped him off at his mom’s house, so their driver could take them to the airport.
(The driver’s name is Rafik, and he was the one who drove me to the ER in my infamous Young Dolph accident – listen to about 10 minutes of this episode and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about 😂)
After dropping him off, I was getting a bit of a late start to the gym but I knew I had until 11 am to be home.
Why 11 am, you ask?
Because my freakin’ WEDDING DRESS WAS OUT FOR DELIVERY!!!!!!
Here’s the thing: you would naturally wonder what precautionary measures are taken when you’re putting a VERY VERY expensive, custom wedding dress on a plane and flying it over 1,500 miles to a girl whose wedding is in approximately 43 days.
I can tell you because that’s exactly what I asked a few weeks ago, as I was standing in my dress in New York City paying the $350 charge 🫠 to ship my dress to Texas once the alterations were done.
For one, they ship it via FedEx express 2-day shipping which includes insurance and requires a signature at the time of delivery. They give you a 4-hour window for delivery ahead of time. If you’re not there, they take it back to the warehouse and you can pick it up.
Sounds great… and safe, right?
Except that’s exactly what didn’t happen.
I’m at the gym and plan to be home by 10:50, while I comfortably wait for the 11am-3pm delivery window for the wedding dress that I went on multiple planes to find.
No sweat…
Then I see a notification on my phone as I’m taking a break in between deadlift sets.
We have about 18 different apps that notify us of legit any movement in/around our house. From cameras to ring doorbells, so much as a snake slithers past my lawn and I know about it and have the evidence to prove it.
The notification is from my ring doorbell,
“There is motion at your front door.”
I’m thinking, “Well, it can’t be Josh, he’s probably sipping on a mimosa in the back of a black Escalade on his way to a first-class flight. So who is it?”
I open the app, tap on the ‘live feed,’ and when I saw on my screen what you’re about to see below, I could’ve sworn my heart seized and fell straight out of my butt on the squat rack platform.
If you used your context clues, you could gather that is my FREAKING WEDDING DRESS SITTING ON MY FRONT PORCH FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD TO SEE WITH ZERO PROTECTION!!!!!!!!!
Granted, I live in a great neighborhood and an area that is extremely safe with little to no crime but these are the kinds of neighborhood alert notifications I see on my Ring app on a regular basis:
I don’t think you’ve seen someone move as fast as a woman whose 5-figure wedding dress was casually dropped off on her porch with no warning while there are actual porch pirates on the loose 😩
The speed at which I threw that barbell down (and re-racked my weights of course) was impressive. I grabbed my things, sprinted out of the gym as if I had just shit my pants, and booked it across the parking lot.
Would you be surprised to know I park at the back of the parking lot, so I can get extra steps in? 🙄 At this point in time, every step was another second my wedding dress was up for grabs.
From the moment I opened the app and saw my package looking like a giant sitting duck screaming, ‘COME TAKE ME’ I kept my Ring app in ‘live mode’ with the mic on, ready to yell a mix of extreme expletives and threats if I saw someone so much as look towards my front porch.
Thankfully, I drive a 6-cylinder Jaguar and live about 5 minutes from my house with no red lights, so I was able to pull into my driveway within a few minutes.
(Now, if I’m ever annoyed at someone speeding and thinking in my head they’re being too aggressive, I’ll just tell myself that maybe their wedding dress was also delivered on their porch without warning, and maybe they too live amongst extreme porch pirates.)
As we speak, the dress is safely sitting in my dining room.
However, I will probably be suffering from high blood pressure for the rest of the day with the level of scare this morning gave me.
But now that we know the dress is safe and I barely survived a heart attack, I need to have a word with FedEx!!!!!!
This was definitely NOT delivered in the time window given and they did NOT ring my doorbell or even try to get a signature. I watched him literally set the box down and leave (probably ready to finish his freakin’ route so he can hit the early happy hour tonight).
And I get it, Mr. FedEx driver doesn’t know there is a bride’s dress in there that would probably morph her into Godzilla if anything happened to it between now and the next month.
But Mr. FedEx driver didn’t follow directions, and he is damn lucky the porch pirates didn’t get my dress or I would 1000% sue everyone and their mother at FedEx.
I’m still debating if I want to call FedEx and request my $350 shipping fee be refunded considering the near-death experience I almost encountered due to their lackadaisical delivery.
(I’m also mad I didn’t get to finish my workout on the ONE DAY I didn’t have to rush through it to make a meeting or a call.)
I swear, you just can’t make this shit up 😂
In my true newsletter fashion, there’s always a point I want to make at the end of Earn After Reading– alesson I want you to walk away with.
And here’s the lesson for today: cutting corners is never a good idea.
That’s it. Just don’t do it.
And with that, I’ll leave you with a few photos of the dresses I DIDN’T choose ;)
(All of these were from Monique Lhuillier–the top one was one of my absolute favorites, but doesn’t even come NEAR the dress I chose.)
Show yourself some love today. You’ve earned it.
As always,
Taylor Torres
Hi, I'm Taylor Torres, accidental adulting expert and purveyor of all things unhinged. When I'm not navigating the rollercoaster of the real world, you can find me dishing out a weekly dose of humor, heart, and a dash of TMI right here in this little corner of the internet.
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