I’m not saying I’m always smart but I generally have some kind of common-sense. But hey, we all have occasional embarrassing “duh” moments… well, this is one of these.
On Saturday, Feng and I went through the usual week-end ritual that invariably includes having a late breakfast and trying to figure out what to do. The weather wasn’t great and we weren’t inspired. After a quick stop at the library (I go through several books a week) and shopping for light bulbs (one died in the bathroom and we never got around replacing it), we decided to head to Barrhaven, aka Farrhaven, one of Ottawa’s far suburbs.
There is nothing special there but a cluster of big box stores. The plan was to hang out at Indigo for a while, reading magazines and having a coffee. Feng drove from Nepean and eventually pulled into the busy parking lot. I got off the car first and he followed me, slamming the driver’s door behind him. He stood there for a second and looked at me.
“Oh shit!”
“What’s going on?”, I asked, thinking he was pulling my leg.
Feng pointed at the dashboard. The keys were inside the car, dangling on the ignition.
“The keys are inside.” As you can see, I’m great at stating the obvious.
We walked around the car in case one of the doors wasn’t locked. No such luck. We checked the windows to see if one was still open. No luck either.
“Isn’t there a quick trick for these kinds of situations?”, I asked eagerly, pulling out my phone to Google the situation on my BlackBerry.
“Well, in theory you can put a coat-hanger behind the rubber moulding of the window and pull to unlock the door. But we don’t have a coat-hanger”.
“They might”, I said, pointing a Winners, right across the parking lot.
We briefly explained the customer service assistant what happened. She looked at us suspiciously and stated she had no coat-hanger, while hanging clothes on coat-hangers. We left before she called the police. I could very well see us being arrested for stealing our car.
Feng decided to take the bus back home where we had a spare set of keys. I gave him bus tickets and wished him luck—the trip from far away suburbia to home would take at least 40 minutes. I sat in Indigo with a magazine and kept an eye on the car.
Fourty minutes later, Feng called me. “I forgot something”, he said. “What, what did you…. Oh”. I mentally pictured the car keys and answered my own question. Feng’s home keys were on the same key ring as… the car keys. “Fuck”.
So it was my turn to take the bus. I went to get some change in a shop—bus tickets are not sold in suburbia and buses only take tickets or exact change—and made my way home. Feng picked me up at the bus stop and we went to retrieve the spare car keys. And parted ways again because Feng still had to take the bus back to Barrhaven to pick up the car.
That basically kept us busy from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
We kept on saying how lucky we were: at least, there was a bus service service from Barrhaven. At least, I had my own home keys (this is not a given as I often forget them in my yoga bag). At least, it wasn’t pouring rain. At least, we had our cell phones.
But boy, did we feel dumb…
Please, make me feel better: it happened to you too, didn’t it? Do share!
Oh no! I needed to post a letter once, and I saw a post box on the side of the road. I pulled over next to it, in the pouring rain and jumped out of my car. When I got back I realised I’d locked the door, with my keys in the ignition, and my car was going! I’d just been working for my uncle to pay off a car debt I already had with him and was on my way home. I ran to my auntys house around the corner, called him and he sent two of his guys out to unlock my car. I never lived it down, locking myself out with the car still going!!
Ok. That is WOW ^-^
Oh no! At least our car wasn’t running. And it wasn’t pouring rain (or snow). I can totally picture the scene!
BTW, any plans to start blogging again? Are you still in France?
I was making a bank deposit at the night deposit box once, for work, and I pulled up to the curb, ran over to the box, dropped the bank bag in, and walked back to my car – only to discover that it was locked, running, with the heat on. It was about 10 degrees Farenheit outside. I had AAA, so I called them from a payphone (this was before everyone had a cell phone), and I wanted an hour for two idiots with basic lock jimmies. But they didn’t work.
After 45 minutes of trying, they got the jimmies stuck under the window (they were sort of U-shaped, and they managed to get one stuck under the driver’s side and passenger side windows) and left them there because their dispatcher was yelling at them to go to the next call. They said a locksmith would come help me out.
Another hour wait, and a locksmith finally showed up. He explained that my car had anti-theft locks, and the space that he needed to get into to unlock the door was only about 1/2 inch wide, which is why the idiots couldn’t get in. But I did get in my nice warm car and went home. I was cold to the bone and stiff from shivering for a few hours, but glad not to be standing out in the cold anymore.
Oh my! Okay, it is worst than my story. Standing like that in the cold… the guys were two idiots, as specialists they should have known better!
Haha, I was having a long day and this put a smile right on my face 🙂
Also, Yay, you’ve got some improvements to your theme. Looks good.
Thanks! Yeah, I upgraded the theme a bit late March. Glad you like it!
What a great way to spend your Saturday!
No. It never happened to me… more than twice. 😉
… and then came the Spanish interview 🙂 I really couldn’t share the story in Spanish though, although I think all immigrants to Canada should know that keys must NOT be left inside a car 😆
Oh my… well, this never happened to me so far, but you’ve seen from my last blog post – I’m not always the bright one 😉
At least you found entertainment for saturday afternoon!
I can’t think of anything right offhand but I’ve had similar adventures. I flew out of town once and at the last minute decided to use a valet parking service which was great except I locked my luggage and the key was on my key ring so I had to borrow a tool and wreck my luggage.
Stuff like this happens all the time to me.
Ouch for breaking into your own luggages! I guess when you travel often like you, these things happen.
locking the keys in the car is an adventure, and i can totally relate.
one time we were on holiday. we walked out of the hotel and went ot the car. it was hot, so lee took off his jacket. he threw it in the trunk. he closed the trunk and immediately said “oh oh.” the keys were in his jacket. my purse was in the trunk too. we had to call a locksmith. we waited two hours for him to arive.
locking the keys in the car is an adventure, and i can totally relate.
Definitely an adventure! And it’s funny how you notice right away you are in trouble… “oh oh” like you said 😆
In Barrhaven? That’s terrible!
I once locked the keys in the car and stopped a cop who had been patrolling around in a car. Apparently they keep special spy gear in their trunks. (Maybe that could help you another time?) I must say, though… you probably had a more interesting time in Barrhaven than you would have had otherwise 🙂
Granted, Barrhaven turned out to be an adventure 😆
I would have called the police if there was no solution (i.e. if I didn’t have my own set of home keys for instance). But we choose to take the logical step, going back home… even though we forgot about the home keys thing the first time!
I’ve had a membership with CAA since 1997 (?) and have used them many times over the years for towing but only once for retrieving keys from a locked vehicle — but my older brother is to blame for that!
I have, however, locked myself out of this apartment twice and once in the basement for several hours.
#1) Locked myself out doing laundry: my then-downstairs neighbour drove me to the property manager’s office at night, where I met the property manager who thankfully found a spare key!
http://gailatlarge.com/blog/2008/01/19/3595
#2) Locked myself out when my couchsurfer rang the doorbell and the locked apartment door slammed behind me. I went next door where an Albanian tradesman was renovating the house and he jimmied my doorframe open for me!
http://gailatlarge.com/blog/2008/08/11/4228
#3) Locked myself in the basement from the inside when I was taking care of my neighbour’s pets (the neighbour on the main floor, who has access to the laundry room from her part of the basement). I used her entrance but forgot that key, and I discovered too late that the deadbolt on the other door requires my key, which I didn’t think I’d need so I didn’t bring it 🙁
http://gailatlarge.com/blog/2009/05/22/7042
Oh wow! I know you had no luck with your car lately but I didn’t know you were a serial-locked-out-girl! 😆 Okay, that makes me feel better.
I think we locked ourselves out of the bedroom once long long time ago… these stupid little door knob locks.
Oh don’t feel too bad, it happens to all of us. I went to the gym and forgot my house key but had my car key with me. It wasn’t until I was at the house door that I realized that I didn’t have the key. I didn’t have my cell phone on me either. So, I had to drive 1/2 hour to my husband’s work, and asked at the reception if they could call him to come down to the main entrance. There I was all sweaty with gym clothes on, waiting in the reception area. He gave me his house key and I had to drive the half hour back home again.
Once I left the house with no keys at all – no car key, no house key and our door automatically locks when closed. I realized immediately what I had done and I was on my way to teach a class. What was I going to do? Luckily my cell was in my bag so I called my husband to call me a taxi. It cost me 16Euros to get to school. Since it was an evening class, my husband picked me up after class that night.
My brother uses a little magnetic box that holds a car key that you can stick under your car. When you lock yourself out, the spare is there. I now hide a house key somewhere outside in case I lock myself out again!!!
I always carry the spare car keys in my bag when we take a road trip to Toronto or Montreal but I don’t usually do it in Ottawa because… well, I already have too many things in my bag. I should have a spare though. The magnetic box is a cool trick but I’ll be afraid to lose it.
Hi Zhu, I have forgotten about the headlights being on after I park. When I come back to the car, battery is dead and I have to call for help. Fortunately, my current car starts beeping like crazy if the keys are in the ignition after parking or if I leave the headlights on.
Now, for embarrassing moments, a few years ago I bumped into a high school classmate that I had not seen for years.
We were hired by the same company and we had to take a flight to the US for training. It was very early in the morning at the airport, when I met him I said to him “I see that your mom dropped you off”, it was not his mom, it was his wife…..
It happens to all of us.
Ouch! Okay, that was a blunder! 😆 How did he react?
Our car beeps like crazy too if we don’t put on the seatbelts right away, but apparently it lets us close the door with the keys on the ignition. Bad design! 😆
LOL! Man what a story. We once were locked out of our house because the previous owner didn’t install the door lock mechanism properly and it finally gave out. We ended up shopping around for new batteries for our garage door opener because of course ours died out previously.
Thankfully some locksmiths work on weekends. 🙂
… But boy, it can be expensive to have a locksmith come! I’m glad we were able to solve the problem (a problem we created it!) by ourselves.
Hi, Zhu! Oh, these “smart” moments always make me think what kind of mushroom my brain was munching on.
I had a totally dumb moment one evening, while still in Shanghai: after another overtime at work, I came home and started to unlock my apartment’s steel gate, but it didn’t work – key would turn half way and stop. I panicked, called a local locksmith, who was having a dinner (of course), waited anxiously for 40 min, occasionally trying open the gate again to no avail. Then the dude came and unlocked it with my own key! Nothing was broken, I was just turning the key in the opposite direction… (to be fair the lock on my inner door was opening in opposite direction, but mixing these two doors up after all these years was just outright blond :):))
Ouch, that must have been funny afterwards! 😆
Funny how used we are to things… and how suddenly we can forget how they work.
Here is what I thought of, to make you feel better: at least you didn’t have a baby sitting in the back seat when you did that. : )
I guess it would have gotten resolved quicker, but that would have made for a very embarrassing phone call to the police.
I haven’t done that, but I have locked the keys in the car, in the school parking lot on a day when I had offered to drive a friend’s child home from school. At least the school secretary was willing to get me my friend’s phone number and give her a call from the office to tell her we’d be late, since we had to wait for my husband to get back from work on the train and take a taxi over with the other key. And the kids had the school playground to fill the time, and an extra friend… On a separate occasion, I too have forgotten about the car-key-attached-to-the-house-key issue, when I got a lift back from the mechanic’s – the mechanic had the keys, of course. D-uh! Luckily the shuttle drivers know all about this, and always wait to see if you’ve actually gotten through your door before driving off!
This is the kind of mistake everyone tends to make…once. 😉
There are much bigger mistakes out there to be made, trust me. : (
Oh no! I can imagine the frustration, trying to talk the baby into 1) grabbing the keys 2) opening the door for mommy. Until you realize that the poor baby is deep asleep or way too young to understand the problem! 😆
You should have called us! we would have given you a lift!It would have saved you multiple hours of frustration. I was in Barrhaven the other day, it feels further from downtown than from where we live.
There’s a reason why they call it “Farrhaven” I guess!
When I was busing back (act II of the major screw up) I actually call a friend to share the story. She offered us a ride as well but I didn’t take on the kind offer, it’s such a pain to go to Barrhaven!
In my country, yes I own one!!, no, no really… there is a restriction that make us use the car at specific days of the week only, depending on the numbers on the license plate, there for we buy an other car to avoid the problem of getting a cab at rush hour… To enter the car in the garage we use an id card, but we only have one parking space so the other car stays at my wife’s mother garage… One day, very latte at night, returning from the airport, we decide we shouldn’t change cars, and go directly to our home, when we get there I found out, after searching in all my pockets, that the garage card were in the other car… that happened before, so I make the U turn and went back for it… my wife wasn’t happy but she “understand”, when we came back, one of the building guards, came to us and say “You forgot your card AGAIN…” that make me realize that, that must happened too many times now, but the wost part was when he added “don’t worry, next time I’ll open the gate for you…”, I could only smile and say thanks… but I fell like an idiot! Now I carry it in my packet at all times… That happened to me also whit the car keys, I go to my mother in law garage to change cars, and when I get there, is that I realize that I don’t have the other car key on me… really dumb! Now they are on the same key ring jejeje
Well I guest it just happens!!! Well I think, or maybe not…
That happens to me at work! We have a magnetic card to get into the building and I always feel bad when I forget it because I can’t open any door! 😆 And in my old job, the security guard knew me very well too 🙂
Ahahah! Sorry, I can’t help! Great story!
Yes it happened to me during a trip to Spain with my parents, but we were luckier. After spending a night in Barcelona on our way back, we realised we had left the keys inside the car. Fortunately, that trendy young woman stopped and offered help. She was obviously an expert in locks and solved the situation in no time.
But that’s not it! Later on that day, we stopped at the petrol station on the motorway. As we got back to the car… yes, again the keys were inside. However, the boot was open and I managed to get in and open the doors.
More annoying were all the times I locked myself out of the house in Ireland. Most houses here have doors with a latch and I would regularly forget to put the latch on or leave my keys inside. How many times did I have to ring my landlord. After a while, I startedmaking copies and leaving one at work, one with a neighbour or a friend.
Even now, although I don’t have a latch anymore, there is no landlord to ring if I lose my key, so my neighbours and a few friends have a spare copy…
I have these kind of doors! I’m lucky that I never leaved in a place like that because I’m sure I would lock myself out all the time. It happened to me in hotel, you know, when you need a magnetic card to get in. I would often just step out and bam, the doors slams and you look like an idiot explaining the problem in a foreign language.