Meltdown at The Melting Pot?

My roommates and I went to The Melting Pot (our reservation was at 11:15 pm...it was the only time we could get during Restaurant Week). We ate our food...which was mediocre, but worth the experience. If you've never been, you cook your food at the table. They bring out raw meat to dip into boiling pots of oil or broth to cook. It's lots of fun, but takes a L-O-N-G time. We ate as quickly as we could, but still didn't finish until about 1:30 (we had to endulge a bit/too much on the chocolate fondue and 1200 pounds of brownies, banana, cheesecake, marshmallow, strawberries and sponge cake).

And now the real adventure begins...the manager validated our parking and we headed down to the parking garage. At this point, we're all completely engorged on food and drink and wanting to get home. We drive to one exit find the door down...drive to the next exit same...next exit, closed. We're getting slightly worried at this point that we might be locked in, but think "why would the manager validate our parking if the garage had closed?" We continue driving around trying every call box, reading every sign, pulling up to every exit in hopes it will magically open, but no...we're locked in and all in desperate need of a restroom! Horrible feeling! We have nightmares of spending the night locked in a concrete box--scary!

Finally, a waitress from the restaurant comes out and she has a pass to get out of the garage. She tells us to follow her and she'll get us out. She pulls up to the garage door, it opens and we all gun it out. Freedom, right?!? Oh no, not yet...there's an in and out arm gate-thingy next. Her pass gets her out of the prison, but we are now stuck between the garage door and the arm/gate. The girl tries and tries to get her pass to open the gate for us with no luck. In our attempts to get out we may have reved backwards at full speed at one point-with all of us screaming (a funny moment, imagine 4 girls screaming and zooming backwards straight for a large metal door) Finally, after a brief spout of profanity from the kind waitress, the manager comes out. He gives us a little wave, walks up to the gate, RIPS the arm off, tosses it to the side and then waves us through. Quite the night...fortunately the only meltdown was the chocolate!