Laugh at Yourself (Part 2)

Another one of those charming moments in life that is horrible as it happens but funny at a later point happened to me this morning. Pride engulfed me, however, when I found that I was able to laugh at the absurdity of the situation even in the midst of its occurrence.

This morning, I woke up at the butt crack of dawn as I spent the night in Maryland and needed to high tail it to work early in hopes of beating the dreaded D.C. beltway traffic. I arrived a bit before 7:00 at the metro parking garage in as decent a mood as one can be running off so little sleep. I relished the idea of so much leisure time before work- I envisioned myself sitting in a café and reading the paper in preparation for a Monday of work.

This fantasy of a calm and relaxing morning came to a careening halt within mere seconds, however. As I descended the stairs of the parking garage, I realized that my absentmindedness brought on by lack of sleep caused me to forget to change shoes. Unfortunately, flip flops are not exactly work attire, so I dashed back up the stairs to my car to change shoes.

To understand this anecdote completely, I need to share some background information. Until recently, the automatic lock feature functioned on all four doors of my car. Recently, however, the one on the driver’s door stopped working when I tried to lock it from the outside by pushing the button on my key. I quickly adapted to this minor inconvenience, however, and began locking it from the inside once parked. That non-functional automatic lock really screwed me over this morning.

Okay, time to backtrack. Once I arrived at my car to change shoes, I popped the trunk but was dissatisfied with my footwear options. I remembered that the perfect pair for my outfit (wow, I just sounded so girly I can’t stand it) was in the passenger’s seat. Since the only way I can get into the car is to manually unlock the driver’s door, I did so, quickly grabbed the shoes, locked the door from the inside, as is now habit, and slammed the door shut. Then, I turned around and what did I see on the driver’s seat? Yes. My freakin’ keys. 

I should have just worn the flip flops to work. 

Yes, I do have three sets of keys to my car. Guess where set number two was? I am almost too embarrassed to admit this- in the center console. And the third? At the apartment, of course.

My heart jolted with hope when I remembered that I left the trunk open. I figured I could just push the seats forward or crawl through the little compartment into the main part of the car. What actually happened is I spent about 45 minutes looking like a total idiot hanging part way out of the trunk trying to use random objects in the trunk to unlock one of the rear doors.

The middle compartment was marginally too small for my whole body to fit through- the best I could do was squeeze my head and one arm through it. My first attempt to infiltrate the car was to try and push the back seats forward. After much struggle, I managed to undo the three latches securing the seats in the upright position. Yet even so, the seats wouldn’t budge. I looked through the back window to investigate.

This world is full of dark humor sometimes. The only way to get the seats down is with, you guessed it, the key. So plan B commenced with my using a strange metal object I found by the spare tire in the trunk to try and reach the lock in the back and push it up. Naturally, it was about an inch too short, so I tried to attach it to a pen in sheer desperation and to a few other objects I could find. Well, it turns out I couldn’t MacGyver myself out of that situation, so I finally caved and called AAA. If I had known from the get-go that AAA services are free, I would have called them prior to my prolonged display of idiocy.

One thing I found slightly discouraging was that not a single person offered to help me, and at least 15 to 20 cars drove by (it’s a popular garage). I mean, was not a single person concerned that there were legs clearly dangling out the back of a trunk? Maybe in their positions I would not have stopped either.

Let me conclude by saying that I am madly in love with AAA. The representative with whom I spoke was a super nice lady, and didn't even make fun of me when I offered to drive out of the parking garage to meet up with the driver to make it easier to find me. She reminded me that my keys being inside the car would make that a bit tricky...

They sent a guy over and he had the door opened in about five seconds flat. That freaked me out a little bit; what if a criminal were to secure a position as a AAA driver? That’s probably a wee bit paranoid of a thought. Well anyway, instead of being pouty over my lost hours of morning of café relaxation, I kept visioning my legs hanging out of the trunk and my head peeking out between the back seats and couldn’t help but chuckle. Oh, my life…

NOOOOOOO!