Locked Out!

You ever have one of those slow motion moments of disaster? Where you see it coming and your going “Noooooooooo!!!”, but it happens anyway. That was me today.

I had stopped at the Kwiki Oil Lube to get the oil changed on my van. After changing the oil they always ask you to start the engine and let it run for a min or two while it is sitting there over the pit. So, when asked, I reach in and turn the engine on and step back to the front of the van.

The thing about my van is that the after market remote lock system, when you crank the van, automatically locks the doors. So it is sitting there running and I had left the drivers door sitting open. Trust me I know my van… I always leave a door open or a window open so I can get back in. I’ve locked myself out before.. lol.. Maybe I shouldn’t tell on myself but, well, it has happened.

Here is where the slow mo disater happens.. The young lady that was working on my van walks back beside the van and when she reaches the door instead of squeezing by it she starts to close it.. I saw it happening before she ever laid hands on it.

I holler out “Don’t shut the Door!”

You can see her try to stop herself but she was mentally committed to the action and still pushed the door hard enough for it to start swinging shut on its own. It hit just hard enough for the lock to engage while the door was still not fully shut. 🙁 It was still locked enough.
So there I stand looking in at the keys hanging in the ignition, engine runnning, locked out. There is a sort of horrified silence around me as it hits the owner and two employees what just happened.

The lady that owns the place in a low horrified voice goes “You can get back in right?”

I just look at the van with a fatalistic sense of dismay.

“Maybe.” I reply. “I’ve broken in before but I need a really heavy piece of wire like a welding rod or something similar.”

She walks over and grabs some clothes hangers that are sitting on a work bench and hands them to me. I look at them dubiously but take them. What choice do I have? I have to try something. I cut them and shape them, then try to break in with the resulting tool. It’s just to flimsy. The clothes hangers are just not stiff enough.

I step back again with a muttered curse at the clothes hanger and again shake my head in dismay. The van is still sitting there happily running with me on the outside.
The owner just goes “Ok, I’m calling for help.”

She calls and then tells me that as soon as someone she knows delivers a vehicle they will be over to open it up. I’m assuming he is a locksmith or some such. Four minutes later a pickup pulls up and a guy gets out. Fast delivery!! He takes a look and then walks back to his truck and gets a wedge he uses to create a small gap at the top edge of the passenger door, then he takes an infatable bag that he slides under the rim beside the wedge and starts to pump up and make a even bigger gap. He walks back to his truck and gets a long two piece rubber coated steel rod with a 1 inch long 90 degree bend in one end with a handle on the other end. He, with me guiding him becuse he can’t see where the lock is from where he is with the rod, slides it in the van through the crack and hooks it under the lock and unlocks the door. Start to finish he only took 4 or 5 minutes. I think he had done this before. 🙂

The owner slides him a twenty and tells me there will be no charge for the oil change and that she is sorry about them locking me out of the van. I let her pay him but insisted on paying for the oil change. Shit happens! You know? I wasn’t going to take advantage of them to get a free oil change. Anyways in retrospect I should have rolled the window down so that the situation couldn’t have happened in the first place.

In my imagination I could just about hear the combination sigh of relief/soft curse as I pulled out on the road. You know it sucks when something like that happens with a customer. I know I hate it when I cause a problem and have to fix it on my dime. I’m pretty sure they were happy that if it had to happen it was me it happened to though. With my 1992 old beat up van and me just doing the fatalistic shit happens routine it was more a comedy of errors than a hard drama. I can only imagine someone anal that would get really upset about that sort of situation. Its enough to make you cringe just thinking about.

Well … alls well that ends well… It gave an interesting twist to the day and a story to tell.

Locked out at the Kuiki Oil Lube!!!!