Keys in the car

[vaneramos]

More Eramosa reflections


Recently, returning from a shopping trip and lifting groceries out of the trunk, I realized I had forgotten an important errand. I dropped the groceries, tossed my canvas bag on top, and closed the trunk. Bad move. That bag usually rides on the front seat, and I had just deposited the car keys in it. Luckily, I keep my apartment keys on a belt chain, and a spare car key in my desk against emergencies.

I've locked myself out three times with more serious consequences.

First time, I was visiting Palm Beach, Florida, with my roommate, Scott, during Christmas holidays in 1984. I had to call a locksmith.

In 1987 I was camping at Cyprus Lake on Bruce Peninsula. I could see the keys lying on the back seat. Without even thinking, I thrust my fingers under the window seal, pulled the glass outward, pushed my arm through and unlocked the door, tearing two strips of skin off my forearm.

A few weeks later I did it again outside Kitchener City Hall on a journalism assignment for college but couldn't open the window and missed a deadline.

Tell a story about a time you locked yourself out of the car.

~~~~~~~~~~

Another image is posted in texture.

Comments

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

In 1965, fresh out of the Navy, and having not a single friend or
acquantence anywhere nearby, I took myself on a date to the nearby
drive-in movie. Between features, I went to the snack bar to stock
up on popcorn, etc. Upon my return, I noticed to my consternation
that I had locked the keys in the ignition, something that most
cars won't allow you to do any more. I walked home, stopping at
the ticket booth to explain my stupidity to the people there. I
returned after a bit, just in time to get in and unlock my car
with my mom's spare key. ~paul

[stephe.livejournal.com]

I drove to campus one day when I still at Notre Dame. As I was getting out of the car in the parking lot, someone pulled up behind me and asked for directions to a building on campus. My body went on cruise control and I locked and closed the doors while I was talking to them. It was only after the pulled away that I realized that the car was still running. So of course, I reached into my pocket for the keys. It must have taken me at least a minute or two to realize that, if the car was still running, the keys must be in the ignition. In the locked car.

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

Only time I've done it was driving from Georgia back to North Carolina last year for Thanksgiving. I'd already got a late start to begin with, & was bit frazzled. I stopped at a gas station in rural South Carolina, filled up... and realized that I'd left my keys in the ignition, and locked the door. I ended up calling a locksmith, who took about an hour to come -- another 50 miles or so down the road, I realized that I had a roadside assistance plan that would have covered the locksmith charge completely. Oops.

I then ran into horrific traffic later on the trip, & what should have been a 6 hour trip took more than nine hours. I was pretty useless by the time I got to the party with bfebear, bearcubbnc, and some of their friends, nearly at midnight.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Cars are so much more secure nowadays. There's no way I would have been able to break into my own car on a newer model the way I recalled in 1987. On the other hand we have these handy remote door locks. If I use it faithfully, I'll never lock myself out, unless I do something really tricky and hare-brained like throw my bags in the trunk!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's funny the things we do to ourselves in moments of distraction. I wonder if your stranger noticed what was going on!

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

!!~paul

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I've noticed these things seem to happen away from home, when our usual routine gets broken. I was grateful for the remote door locks this summer when I went camping to the east coast. If I used them faithfully, I was pretty well assured of never locking myself out of the car. It's easy to get absent-minded about it when you're living out of the trunk and back seat.

Apart from locking my keys in the car, I've had a couple awful road trips that turned out to be worse than I'd bargained for. A subject for another post someday, perhaps.

[stephe.livejournal.com]

I really, really hope not.

[square-egg.livejournal.com]

Right before my wind quintet played at this (http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/wedding/) great/historical gay wedding, I locked both the keys and my oboe in the car. I was just mortified. My mother made it down to the church with her own keys just in time that I could get my oboe and dash up to the balcony to play - I wouldn't have missed being part of that ceremony for the world!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I remember that day! Geez, why can't any of my auto mishaps be interesting sidebars to important historical events? ;-)

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, right--that story; I was about to tell it. (Just for the record the car in question was a 1980 Toyota corolla. Toyota has since instituted, in all of its cars that I can tell, a safety feature which prevents this from happening. There's still nothing they can do if you drop the keys in the car somewhere...then lock the door manually.)

Our old Volvo solved even that problem: you could not lock the driver's door by pushing down the button while said door was open (closed, fine, no problem). You had to shut the door and insert the key into the door lock. One could not therefore get out of the car, poke the lock button and shut the door, no matter where the keys were.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm so absent-minded, I appreciate all the safety features they've added to newer cars. Besides locking the keys in the car (never with the car running, thankfully), I would frequently leave the headlights on before they added dingers. It's incredible that I still managed to lock my keys in the trunk. I already had a rule: "Never put the red bag in the trunk." But in a moment of duress, did that stop me?

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I have locked my keys in every car I've owned (except the first). I guess this runs counter to the saying "Live and learn," huh? The most recent was just a few weeks ago in a downtown Pontiac parking lot across the street from some trendy nightclubs. I called AAA and a tow-truck driver eventually came, but in the meantime I got to watch quite a few well-dressed and scantily clad young people go off to have a good time waiting in line to get into the clubs. It wasn't terribly cold, only 48°F (9°C), but still too cold to be wearing some of the outfits those girls were wearing.

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't stop me either. That's why we've each got a duplicate set of keys to BOTH cars now...

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Both John's current and immediately previous cars -- both Subarus, and this takes us back to 1992 -- have the feature that the headlights go off when you turn the ignition off. (There's a switch position to override this, but it's not the normal "headlights on" position.) I don't know why all cars don't do this.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I think the closest we've come is the time that jwg left his car for service and bicycled to work, and then biked back in time to pick up his car before the place closed at 6:00 -- except that they closed at 5:30. (Important note: the garage was within biking distance of his office, but not of home.) The car was sitting in the lot, so he would have just taken it and left a note that he would come back to pay them in the morning, except that he was unaccountably not carrying his spare car key. So he called me at my office (which I fortunately had not left yet -- this was before the days of cell phones) so I could stop off at the garage on my way home and he could use my spare key to liberate his car.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this lesson isn't easily learned. At least, not remembered during those moments of distraction. After 18 years I still live in fear of locking my keys in the car, which is why I have the mental rule about not putting the red bag in the trunk. But when I'm thinking about something else, rules are useless.

Sounds like you fit in some interesting people-watching anyway.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I normally leave the spare key in my desk drawer when I'm tooting around Guelph. I figure it wouldn't be much trouble to bus home or nab a ride if I locked myself out of the car. But whenever I leave town, both sets go with me. If I'm stuck downtown Toronto, having a spare key at home doesn't do much good.