I Am Idiot

Yep, how is that for a title?

By the way Happy New Year!!

Back to the title. I am Idiot, why you ask? Well, because I am now $125 poorer thanks to my locking the keys in my running car. It all happened so fast, so fast in fact, that I didn't even know that I had done it.

It snowed last night, still snowing in fact, and I was getting ready to leave for Church (Holy Day, don't you know). Anyway, I went to unlock the driver's side door, when I found the lock to be frozen shut - it has happened before, and I knew the solution. Go around to the other door and unlock it from there. Anyway, I opened the door and started the car - to warm it up and help with defrosting the window, etc. I had also tried to unlock the door by cycling through the power locks a couple of times, it didn't loosen the driver side, but no problem, my car has a large front seat, and I can just slide over after I get the car cleared off.

I close the door and proceed to clear off the snow and ice from the windows. I get around to the driver side door and try to open it - oh yeah, I forgot that it was frozen shut, so I head to the passenger side and ... What the heck?! This door is frozen shut too? Ah man, so I give it a bigger tug. Nope. Still stuck.

That is when the 'real story' starts to sink in for me. I think I locked my keys in the car. Crap. Okay, no biggie let's just go back in the house and call someone. But who? A locksmith, I would imagine. First place I call, no answer. Same goes for the second and third. Small moment of panic. Why is no one answering their phones.

Duh.

It is New Year's Day. Dang it. Now what?

Well I grab the bigger phone book - I was looking at the mini-book version of the phone book, that covers just Batavia. There it is. 24 hour emergency service. Great, let me call them.

"Hi, I locked my keys in my car, can you come out and help me please?"

"Sure, no problem, what's your address?"

I tell him... "I'll be there in twenty-five minutes."

Cool. I can make it to the next Mass, since I obviously will not make it to the 9 o'clock now.

Twenty-five minutes later, I get a phone call.

"Hello, you call about unlocking your car?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there in twenty-five minutes."

"Okay?"

What the heck, I didn't realize that the guy meant he was going to CALL me back in twenty-five minutes. Great. Well, I guess I better go and shovel the driveway now. I was really hoping to avoid that. You see, if I had gone to Mass, my neighbor would then clear the shared driveway, but now, I have to do it. At least it is exercise. :-)

So, I am shoveling the 'Heart Attack' snow - called that because of the amount of exertion required to lift the heavy stuff, and the penchant for fat guys to overdo it. No worries, I'm not that fat, right. Well as it turns out, I'm not the one that broke. I'm working up a little bit of a sweat - even though it's something like 18 degrees outside - that's Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Like I said, I was in a rhythm and getting the drive cleared, when I hear a crack.

Uh oh, my back has called it a day. Wait, my back doesn't hurt. In fact it feels pretty good, considering I have three 'warming pads' sleeping with me named; Quigley, Clancy and Finnegan. I would have a fourth and fifth, but Zoe is just too big, and Kirby doesn't like to share the bed with the dogs, understandable considering he's a cat, keeping my back warm and loose through the night.

What an extremely too long sentence that was. Sorry.

Okay, so I hear the crack, and since my back isn't hurt, I try again. CRACK. Oh no. I look at my shovel and I see a small crack on the front where the shovel meets the handle. I have half the driveway left, but I think that if I take it easy I can make the shovel last. So I was shoveling, and hearing an occasional crack, and finished my drive. On closer inspection of the shovel, the crack on the front never got any worse, in fact it looks a little better. How can that be? I turn the shovel over and found my answer. A HUGE crack on the back side.

Guess I'm going to need a new shovel.

I come back in the house and wait for the 'lock guy' to come out.

Finally he's here. Sixty minutes later. At least my car will be warmed up.

It takes him easily twenty minutes to get it open. I was hoping for longer, so that I would feel better about getting my money's worth. Especially when I see what he is doing.

Right before he got here, my neighbor JH said he could get it with a clothes hanger. But it is power locks I say, clothes hangers won't work... will they? Of course they will he responds. Well I already called a guy.

So the guy, we'll call him Nick because that's his name, pulls out what amounts to a reinforced clothes hanger. JH sees this, of course. I know I will hear about it later. He doesn't disappoint.

So, that is how my New Year has started. I hope it is not a foreshadowing of what this year will be like, I can't afford it.

Oh and I'm a sinner now, because I missed Mass. I knew I should have went last night!

Happy New Year!!

As a post script... At least Rachel and her lovely salute is finally off the front page. :-)