One of those OOOPS moments!

A guy I know on the Heartcall Cafe Forums shared a story about locking his keys in his truck, and it reminded me of an experience I had in the vein, so I thought I'd share it here.

When I was about 17, I wanted to do something nice for my dad for father's day. I asked my mom if I could take his car up to the car wash to wash, vacuum and wax it. She said sure and gave me her set of keys. Now you have to understand, all the time growing up, we NEVER got to drive dad's car. Not that he ever had anything that you'd consider a special or nice car, it was just his thing - his car was HIS car.

Anyway, I get to the car wash near our home, and it was slammed, very busy. So, I decide to drive to the car wash by our church, that was a couple of miles away. I pull up to the vacuums and go to work, vacuuming and dusting the interior of the car, and then moving to the trunk. Just as I finished the trunk, the keys fell out of my shirt pocket onto the floor of trunk. I saw them glistening in the sun just as the trunk lid slammed shut.

D'oh

So, I go a payphone at the Safeway across the street and call home. My mom was annoyed, and said she'd send my dad down in the other car. Well, remember when I said my mom gave me her keyring? Her keyring had her copies of the keys to both their cars on it. My dad always had 2 keyrings, one with the keys to his car, and the other had his copy of the key to mom's car, and all his other keys for house, work and so forth on it. Wanna guess where that second keyring was? Oh, I'll tell ya. It was in his jacket pocket. His jacket was in the trunk of his car. I put it there when I was vacuuming the interior of the car because it was laying on the back seat, in my way.

At this point, I'm at the carwash that's about 5 miles from home, with both of the keys to my mom's car locked in the trunk of my dad's car. On Father's day. Dad did have the keys to his car with him, so he hopped on my bicycle and rode it to where I was. He was mad. MAD, I tell you. He was huffin and puffin from his ride. Got in his car, started it up, and said "you're riding that bike home," as he sped off screeching the tires on the wet pavement at the car wash.

I have never, ever locked keys in a car since that day.

Cars

I mention in my profile that I'm into cars. I like cars. I like fast cars. I like cars that handle. I love fast cars that handle. Unfortunately, though, I don't even have a car I like let alone fit into any of those descriptions. I suppose if I had my druthers, I'd have something like a BMW 3-series for something pretty fast and handles well, an old muscle car like a '68-'72 Chevelle SS, Olds 442, Pontiac GTO, and something like a Chevy Avalanche for toting the family and gear around - though with gas prices the way they're going, I doubt I'll ever have any of them.

Currently, we have an '05 Chrysler Town and Country minivan. It's our 3rd Chrysler Corp minivan, having had 2 Dodge Grand Caravans prior to this one. We've grown to love the utility, people moving ability, comfort, and ride of a minivan, and have been pleased with the Chrysler products. Both our previous vans were near 200K miles when traded or sold, and we anticipate the same kind of service from this one. We average around 22mpg with it.

We also have a '92 Honda Accord. I bought this one for $1500 off of ebay last year as I wanted a smaller car for better gas mileage than the pickup I drove up until I bought this. It needs a little work, but it's been pretty solid so far. And suprisingly fun to drive. It's got a lot more pep that the last asian car I had, and handles pretty well, too. It gets right around 30mpg.

I still have the pickup I mentioned above, but I'm getting ready to sell it. It's a '99 Chevy K-1500. I love it, but it's just not a practical vehicle for us to keep right now. The van has all the utility we need, and my neighbor his a nice open trailer that our van can pull should we have the need. The truck gets about 17mpg.