Hey there! Been a while.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Having a backup is extremely important. You may think you're the most careful person in the world, but sometimes things happen and you NEED to have a second release.
If you don't know me, my typical style of bondage is to use compression clothing and corsets to secure myself along with cuffs, collars, gags, etc. Tonight's adventure started like any other. Several layers of pantyhose and compression tees between corsets, sealed on with unitards and a collar with a lock sharing the zipper to my final unitard (catsuit, if you will). My method of release is a Kitchen Safe. It's a simple box with a dial on the top. You spin the wheel to a desired duration and push the button.
I typically give myself challenges, like driving somewhere while wearing my outfit, harness gag, tall boots, corsets, and all. Sometimes it's to a bank ATM, sometimes it's to get gas for my car, but it's always somewhere outside and reasonably public (even if it's at night). The challenge is that when I set my safe's time, I'll pull out the battery and I'm only allowed to put the battery back in once I've completed my challenge. So I can chose not to do the challenge, but it means I'll be stuck in my outfit until I do.
To set the timer, I'll usually choose a reasonably short time period, about an hour or two. This way, I can spend several hours completing my challenge or procrastinating and then once I arrive back home, I can put the battery back into the safe and I'll only have a short time left until release. The twist is that I don't look at the safe when I set the time so I don't know how long is left. But I'll do a few really big spins to the left to make sure it's zeroed out and then spin it a little bit to the right to set the time. I've gotten pretty good at getting it around 1 or 2 hours. Then I push the button to lock it, and pull the battery and the adventure begins.
Tonight was just going to a 24-hour gas station. I had all my layers, some tall boots, a stainless steel collar and a harness gag on. I drove about 20 minutes to the gas station, pulled in, started the pump and waited outside the vehicle for it to finish. That's one of my mini requirements. If I don't complete tasks in full, I'll punish myself with extra things like wrist cuffs or changing to locked-on ballet boots, etc, when I get home. All went well, I didn't get very many stares, and drove home.
Arriving home with no penalties, it was time to start the safe's timer. My rules for release also came with mini-challenges, though. I put the battery back in to start the timer going at whatever time it was already set at, but still made sure I didn't look at it. I had no idea if it would be 45 minutes or 3 hours. My rules were every time I checked the safe to see if it was unlocked and it wasn't, I'd add more to my predicament. So I could either stay in my outfit as I was, or risk locking more items on. And if I ever looked at the time remaining, I'd have a major penalty like wrapping my head in duct tape or tying myself into a hogtie and having more penalties for releasing myself early.
I put on a movie and as the night went on, I decided to put electrical tape over the display so I wouldn't accidentally look at the time because I didn't want to put myself into a major situation. As I was taping the display though, I realized that I technically checked that the safe was still locked, even though I knew it would still be. So this meant I needed to add my opera gloves and locked on wrist cuffs. No biggie, I can deal with this.
The movie finished and I was starting to get sore. The gag and boots weren't locked on, so those were removed when I got home, and were to become more additions to be locked on if I checked the safe again. But the corset was beginning to pain. I had tightened it a bit too tight this time and I was starting to regret it, so I went to check the timer. Basically, my rule is to apply the punishment before checking the safe. If the safe is open, I can just unlock everything, but if the safe is not open, I'm stuck in my punishment. This prevents me from chickening out. So I put on the harness gag and locked all the buckles. Then I checked the safe, expecting it to be unlocked by now. But it was still locked. But I really wanted out. So at risk of making things terrible on myself, I peeled off the tape because I just had to know what was taking so long.
And that's when I saw the clock read 9 days and over 13 hours remaining. Apparently I had a dumb moment when setting the timer and one of the spins to zero out the timer was in the wrong direction and I added over a week to the timer. I couldn't spend another hour in my setup, let alone a week! I thought I was being so careful!
Luckily, I had a backup and luckily it's not the same backup I had in years past. I used to have to drive 10 miles or so to a secluded road and get a stash of keys. I thought this was a bit too risky of someone finding it and moving it, so I instead now use a combination lockbox that landlords use and I have a copy of every single key in it. But the combination is scrambled and I have to crack it. I keep it in my car. So I had to go out to my car in my outfit and gag again, get the lockbox come inside and begin cracking the combination using a shim and let myself out.
It was kind of a scary moment to see NINE DAYS on the timer. It's still counting down now. Worst-worst case, I could always just break the safe, but that's a backup plan I don't ever want to do, because replacing those safes is expensive! But if I was using a different kind of safe that wasn't easily breakable, and didn't have that backup option, I'd be in BIG trouble.
Make sure you have a backup plan!
~Mrs. Locks~