Have you ever done something so irrevocably stupid and avoidable you wished you’d just called in sick and stayed in bed?
I had one such moment, actually an entire morning, on Monday when I locked my keys in the car with the engine running, on the side of the highway, about 10 km outside of town.
It was supposed to be an easy assignment: just cruise down the road, snap a few pictures of the highway construction and head back — so I drove to the junction of Highways 39 and 18, pulled over and readied the camera.
Funny part is I wasn’t planning on using those particular shots; I was just going to check the lay of the land then find a closer vantage point to get the pictures I wanted, hence not bothering to shut my car off.
Anyway, I grabbed the camera, unlocked the driver side door and even thought shoot, I hope the door doesn’t automatically lock when I get out, then thought nah, it probably won’t.
So I got out, walked up the road and took some distant shots with the zoom then decided I’d head further down, look for a place to park and photograph some machinery up close.
When I approached my car, noticing the lock didn’t look like it was in the “up” position I felt some anxiety.
When I pulled the handle and the door didn’t open, I felt my heart full out sink in my chest.
I could hear my stereo still blasting away happily like it was mocking me.
It made me want to punch the window in. This was foolish, though, because I’m probably not strong enough and would likely have just broken my hand.
Defeated, I tried to remember how much gas was left in the tank.
Then I considered how I was going to explain to my boss his employee is such a dolt he locked himself out of his car on the side of the highway.
No need to dress it up, I thought.
“I just locked myself out of my car on the side of the road and it’s running,” I texted.
“Do you have CAA?”
The text didn’t seem to have any super angered tones at least.
“Nope.”
“How far out of town are you?”
“Turn-off toward Beinfait,” I replied, looking around for a big rock. “Might have to smash the window.”
He told me to hold tight, but truth is I wanted to smash the window in. I know it would have been costly to fix, but I felt stupid and it would have been cathartic.
Like it was the car’s fault, the car was stupid and needed to be punished.
A Good Samaritan then pulled up to see what I was doing.
I told him I locked myself out, feeling sillier hearing myself explain it, but assured him help was on the way.
To make matters worse it was production day at the paper, which means time isn’t particularly spare, and the fact my boss had to take time from producing the paper due to my brilliance wasn’t lost on me.
At length he and the publisher showed up with a large screwdriver and coat hanger to attempt a MacGyver on the lock.
So if you happened to be driving through the junction of Highways 39 and 18 Monday morning, seeing three handsome gentlemen doing what looked like a carjack, don’t worry, it was my car.
Long story short this didn’t work; apparently coat hangers aren’t what they used to be, the thing bending and twisting and not doing as intended, so we had to call in the pros.
At this point I had been standing on the road for more than an hour, the sun getting hotter as it rose into the sky.
My generous editor used his CAA connection to call roadside service, the guy saying he’d be about 15 minutes, but he must have got side tracked with another call, because it was at least another hour before he came to save the day.
When he did show up to open my door, which took him all of three seconds with the proper tools, my car was nice and cool at least because the air conditioning was going full blast for the better part of three hours.
On the bright side I got some sun on my face and I’ll never step out of my car with the keys in the ignition again, and if you’re smart dear reader, neither will you.
