Humor by John Christmann
The Key To The Highway
I bought a new car recently. I haven’t purchased a new vehicle since I was humiliated into securing a utilitarian minivan when my younger kids were born. This was after I learned I was not legally allowed to tie a car seat to the roof of my Jeep with twine.
Buying a car is not what it used to be. New cars are computers on wheels. Nowadays cars come standard equipped with confusing acronyms and display screens with computer technology so we can talk on our cell phones while our cars display directions and warn us of road hazards.
Personally, I would rather have a car that talked on the phone while I navigated, but what do I know?
When I was a starving student and bought my first car things were quite a bit different. Cars were metal and stupid and sported exotic names of horses or cosmic events. My first car was a Ford Plow Horse. My second car was a Datsun Black Hole. They were both pre-owned several times over and I saved a few bucks because they were the color of cheap hotel rooms and ran the risk of exploding spontaneously on the highway.
But I could open up the hood and identify engine parts, even if I didn’t know what they were. Being an image conscious consumer, I bought these cars by imagining how sexy and self-sufficient I looked on the highway staring down an engine block while the car was smoking.
Sometime after I started working for a living, back in the days when there were jobs and disposable incomes, I eventually earned the means to buy a new car.
But even then, automobiles had advanced significantly. I actually purchased a vehicle that prevented me from locking my keys inside. And, as an added bonus, it didn’t break down over 40 mph or require twine to keep the trunk shut.
Of course now cars have become infinitely more sophisticated, even though I have not. Now cars are chock full of sensors and displays and advanced systems that are all activated by a single electronic wireless key that can be kept permanently in a purse or pocket.
Or in my case, a key that can be held permanently out of reach deep within the drivers seat after it slipped from my trousers into the airless space between the seat and the console.
Having years of experience living with mal-functioning vehicles, I was not overly concerned. Besides, even with the wireless key lodged somewhere in the bowels of the seat, the car started perfectly well. Locking it presented some problems, but as long as I didn’t stop anywhere, it was all good.
My wife had different views. For some reason she wanted things to work the way they were supposed to work. It seemed silly to me, but she wanted the ability to lock the car.
So here was my dilemma. I could either have the seat dismantled to liberate the key, or purchase a new key entirely. I was dismayed to learn that both options cost more than I paid for my first exploding Plow Horse. I might have relented to a new key, but it was hard to plunk down so much cash for an electronic device that didn’t even have earbuds.
“What are you doing?” asked my wife. I was standing in front of our new car contemplating the shiny massive thing that mysteriously filled up the space under the hood. I do my best thinking when it appears as if I know what I am doing.
“I wonder if there is an iPhone App to lock the car?” I mused out loud.
“Why don’t you try this?” she said producing a wire coat hanger. "Maybe you can reach the key from underneath."
“Underneath the car?”
“No, the seat!”
I thought about this for a while, working out how I might bend the coat hanger to access the key and lock the car from within the drivers seat.
My son, being an impulsive teenager who thinks he knows everything, grabbed the coat hanger from my hand and immediately dove down to the car floor for a fishing expedition. A minute later he emerged smugly dangling the missing key in front of my face.
He was very excited. “I have to call mom and tell her!” he said proudly, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone. It wasn’t there.
He patted his copious pockets, muttering to himself. “I had it a minute ago! I wonder where it is?”
He is my son and like I said, I have years of experience dealing with automobiles. I immediately called his cell phone and the seat rang.
"Get me some twine and some duct tape," I instructed him expertly in a father-son teaching moment. "I’m going in."
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