When I started nursing school, I had no car. When I finished nursing school I was on my second car and it broke shortly after I started working as a nurse, so I biked every day, rain or shine, for about a year. Then when I got together with my boyfriend Ethan, he fixed up an '95 Toyota Corolla that he had as a second car and gave it to me, and I started driving to work. It was light blue, covered with hippie bumper stickers that had all been peeled or fallen halfway off. There was a design flaw in the car that made all of the keys for '95 Corollas nearly interchangeable, especially when worn, so Ethan also gave it to me with a club, which I faithfully used.
After a particularly stressful night in the ICU as a new nurse, driving home around 8am, I decided to stop at the mini-Walmart on the way home. I was in the habit of wearing lipstick at the time, and buying the $8 lipstick instead of the $1 lipstick felt like a real indulgence after having been a poor student.
I decided to pull in and indulge myself. It was right on the way home, only a mile or two from the hospital. I heard a voice in my head say "No, just go home. You have to work tomorrow. You have plenty of lipstick." After pulling into a parking space, I stepped out of the car. Now, there was another flaw in the car. Whether it was a design flaw or just a result of being old, I don't know. The door tended to swing shut on its own. The next thought I had was "Shit!", as the door had closed, the door was locked, and my keys were inside. Additionally, the lights were on, and my phone was in the car.
Thankfully my wallet was in my pocket. I was inexperienced enough with cars that I'd never locked myself out, but familiar enough with pop culture portrayals of peril to have visions of easily unlocking the car with a wire. Target was next door, which had a better chance of having a metal clothing hanger. I ended up buying some sort of kitchen utensil which I was able unwind, and I spent at least a half-hour trying to unlock the door, knowing the battery was getting deader by the minute. Ethan was already sleeping and probably had the ringer off, so I decided against hunting down a cell phone.
Even though Eugene has a lot of buses, most only ran every 30 minutes, and to get home I needed to make multiple connections, so I spent several hours walking and riding buses to get home. When I woke up in the afternoon, I let Ethan know what had happened. He'd had a stressful day himself, but was understanding and we decided to just leave a little early in his car to unlock the car and do a jump start.
When we arrived, the car was intact. Ethan unlocked the car with difficulty, as the lock was uncooperative with lock picking efforts. As expected, the battery was dead, but with a jump it started right up. I was so excited I got out of the car and hugged him. "What a relief! Thank you so much!" I heard the door shut behind me. Ethan had gotten back into his car and was ready to say goodbye, but when I tried the door, I found it had locked itself. I assume this was from our combined lock picking attempts. The engine was also running, and the lights were on. When I told Ethan, he said a quiet "Fuck," and held his head in his hands as he leaned on his steering wheel. I was just kind of stunned, and on the verge of tears of tiredness and frustration. I turned away and leaned my back on his car and tried to think of what we were going to do next.
Fifteen seconds later, before either of us formulated a plan, a car pulled into the space next to my car. A young hispanic woman got out, and started leading her 4 children into Walmart. I realized she had just parked an older Corolla. "Excuse me!" I said, "I know this is going to sound crazy, but could I just borrow your key for a minute?" and yammered something about a design flaw in the locking system of Corollas. She looked at me for a moment, appearing confused, but she held out her keys to me.
I slipped the key in my door, and turned it. The door unlocked, and I made it to work on time.
Ever since I have had a sort of healthy paranoia about the possibility of locking myself out of my car, and even though the car I have now doesn't lock itself, I always check my pocket for my keys twice before I shut the door behind me.
