Slightly Cursed

If I don’t lose my keys at least once a week it’s probably because I lost my other shoe and couldn’t go anywhere to lose them. Usually, I find them clipped to a shopping cart or in my five-year-old’s pocket (he takes after his father).

In my defense, I’ve had a lot of kids and pregnancy shrinks your brain. Yeah, sure the doctors say you get it all back 6 to 12 months later, but they lie: you don’t get it all back. Some of that brain matter gets all stuck to itself and you only get, say, 80-90% of it back. Do that half a dozen times, and it really adds up!

So there I was, sitting in my car rifling through a stack of school papers, mail, and electrical cords looking for my Costco card. My husband stared at me and shook his head. “I’m going inside. I’ll be waiting for you at the Customer Service desk getting a temporary card.” Muttering, I waved him away, annoyed that I couldn’t find a brightly-colored piece of plastic.

He got out; I barely noticed that he locked the car. He does that when he’s annoyed that my get-my-stuff-and-exit-the-car procedure takes too long. It’s not like I can’t remember to lock the door myself.

Sometime during this intense, methodical excavation of my car’s innards it dawned on me that I’d last seen it sitting on top of the dresser. Great. I’d have to stand in line for a temporary card. I reached over and unlocked my door.

“Flip-SNICK!”

It immediately relocked itself. Surprised, I tried again and got another flip-SNICK! for my effort. My new Toyota was trying to out-think me!

I prepared for battle. I came to the logical conclusion that I just wasn’t fast enough. Holding the door handle gently with my right hand, my left index finger softly resting on the lock button. Quicker than a greased cat in a laundry chute, I made my move: snapping the button into the unlocked position, I instantly drew back the handle.

Naturally, the security system deduced that it was being broken into from the inside. In my experience, people usually ignore screamy cars. However, sometimes your high-tech, smart car alarm is synchronized with flashing interior lights, and when it’s dark outside, it’s a great show for people who want to ogle the hostage.

(Note to Self: it’s impossible to hide under the dash of a screaming, flashing car in a parking lot full of people.)

Pretending not to be mortified, I waved at a few gawkers while trying to think of ways to escape the car. My cell was at home; my keys were lost in the husband’s pockets. Having no intelligent ideas for escape, naturally the situation required a temper tantrum.

As I slammed things around near the center console, I heard a faint, metallic jingle from deep within. No way! I jabbed at it again.

Ting!

Okay, it was probably just our spare key to the truck. Theoretically, I always kept it in the car so I’d know where it was. Having nothing better to do until my husband finally realized I was never going to make it inside of Costco, I figured I might as well excavate the ting!-y thing buried in there.

Like most center consoles, this would normally require power tools and a hazmat suit to safely penetrate the stratified layers of stuffage. Despite my lack of proper supplies, I had a safety pin, a piece of string, and a stick of chewing gum. I could MacGyver my way into the console!

Buried under three weeks of unopened bills and a green, sandwich-shaped hockey puck one of the kids had hidden there, I found that spare set of keys I’d temporarily misplaced a few weeks earlier. I clearly hadn’t lost them at all!

But it was the valet key. For those of you without a high-tech prison on wheels, the valet key is special in that it lets you drive the car but not open the glove box. Who knew what would happen if you put the key in the ignition while the car thought it was being broken into from the inside?

I’m a risk-taker. I put the key in the ignition and turned the key.

No explosions. No secret car-cell phone calls to the cops. Just silence. Yay, for freedom! Now I could go inside and tell my husband what an inconsiderate jerk he was for imprisoning me in a mean-spirited gadget.

I found my husband waiting for me inside the door. Approaching him with great vengeance and ferocious anger, I was poised to smite when he smiled at me and said, “Oh there you are. Hey, I found my Costco card in my wallet.”

“I was locked in the car.”

He stared at me as if those words made no sense. It didn’t do his case any good that he had a point thinking that.

“It wouldn’t let me out.” Blank stare. “Every time I unlocked it, it locked itself back up.” He started to smile. “And when I tried to trick it, the alarm went off.” For some reason, his fit of laughter took the steam out of my anger.

“Programmers. It figures.” Now, this might have been snarky from a non-engineer, but over the years I’ve learned that the different types of magic aren’t all the same; there’s a hierarchy, and most engineers think their branch of magic is at the peak of this hierarchy. Whatever that is. “They probably didn’t bother getting their security model validated.”

“You’re talking that gibberish that sounds like English again.”

“Sorry. I promise that the next time you’re slow I won’t lock you in, OK?” Then he hugged me.

And amazingly enough, I didn’t kick him in the shin.

written by vic