Sunday, March 02, 2008

Let Me Tell You About Friday

Oh my God, I am an idiot.

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start...

Day: Friday
Time: 1 p.m.
Place: The street in front of my house
Scenario: The most important thing for me to do on Friday was to drive to Ypsilanti and pick up my sexy new license plate to go on my sexy new car. The temporary plate expired that day and I had to get to work at some point. I couldn't risk going to work and getting stuck there past 6, so I opted to hit up the dealership first.
Gold Star: I have yet to make copies of my keys. Keys for the car or house. Yep.

You know what? I'm just going to spare you all the details and jump right to it:

Locked the keys in car. While it was running.

But wait! It gets better.

I was locked out of the house.

My phone was in my bag.

My bag was on the passenger seat.

After my super nice, super patient neighbor tried opening my power locks with every keychain remote he could find in his house, I had to resort to calling a tow company, who then charged me $45 to open the door with what looked like a giant, unraveled coat hanger.

I waited an hour with green tea and hung out with my neighbors' housecat, which is half BOBCAT. No joke, it has no tail.

The best part of the whole situation is that this was not the first time.

Day: Friday, most likely
Time: Evening. Senior year of High School
Place: Applebee's
Scenario: I had just gotten the 'Scort and I was at our friendly neighborhood Applebee's enjoying some chicken fingers and fries. I assume that this was my meal - it was pretty constant for years until I discovered salads and balsamic dressing. (Side note: the Lady and I now boycott Applebees because they charge $8 for a 6-oz glass of shitty wine.)
Gold Star: I parked, we waited for a table, we had dinner, we had conversation, we... emerged two hours later to find that I had locked the doors with the engine running. I called my poor dad to bring me a spare key and made him pass it to me all covertly like a drug deal was going down in the parking lot. Good sport, my dad.

No one at work gave me any crap, even when I showed up over three hours late. Instead, they all ventured to my office to tell their own keys-locked-in-the-car stories. My favorite was John's, who locked the keys and wallet in a rental car on a remote road in Saguaro National Park at noon. In July.

So I am now wondering if each car I own has to go through this rite of passage. What if it gets worse? What if I do stupider, more ridiculous things each time? Well, since I am hoping that this car lasts a while, I'm hoping that it won't be an issue any time soon.

But what would happen if I ever get a house? Yikes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My uncle once locked ALL THREE SETS of car keys in his TRUNK on a *deserted* road in the Arizona desert. My brother was with him and from that day on, Uncle John was known as "Chief Three Keys."

Waayers said...

How can you tell a keys-locked-in-the-car story without a reference to Friends?? You should have written "PLEH" on the ground!

That does suck though. I've locked my keys in my car twice (both times were in high school), and I've been locked out of my house several times as well. The most recent time it happened, Mean Roommate (remember her?) wouldn't even come home to let me in! She was a biz-natch.

Heather said...

megan - Fantastic. I love hearing other people's key stories... they're almost always worse than my own.

waayers - "Oh no, now it's not going to make any sense!"

Anonymous said...

I feel like I should know that Friends reference. And I just don't.

Heather said...

lem - It's "The One Without the Ski Trip." Rachel and Ross have just broken up and Rachel takes everyone else to her sister's cabin to go skiing. They lock the keys in the car (huh, that sounds familiar) and Joey spells "PLEH" on the ground with sticks to that the "helicopters can read it from the air."

Think I'll watch that episode now...