Key Stories? I've got em.
When I was a kid, my dad took my sister and I out for a swim in one of the local rivers. It wasn't particularly fast water there, but it did have some current. Most of the river bed had weeds growing, so anything that made it to the bottom nearly impossible to find. It was near a golf course, so had a game of it in finding golf balls.
As the sun made it's way towards the horizon, we started gathering up our snorkeling stuff and bucket of golf balls to head to the car when my dad looked around, suddenly panicked. He looked at my sister and I and asked if he had given us the keys... :facepalm:
He had never taken them out of his pockets before getting into the water, so with the sunlight just about gone, we grabbed the snorkels and jumped back into the water. How we found those keys before the sun made it down, I'll never know, but we fully expected a long walk home.
(My poor dad! Haha!)
Years later, I was home for a weekend and the first Lords of the Rings movie was still in theaters and we decided to see it. I remember pressuring my dad to fill up the gas tank on the way there since we had plenty of time before the movie started and it was out long enough that we didn't anticipate any lines, but he would have none of that just in case there was a line for popcorn.
After watching the movie, we start walking out of the theater and he pats his pockets and mumbles a choice adjective apparently describing his keys and lets me know we need to check where we were sitting. No dice. So we talk to the people cleaning up the theater, and tell the people at the ticket counter he lost his keys. They take down his number and promise to call if they turn up. After all that, we proceed out into the parking lot to see if they were dropped on the way in. I tried nagging my dad the entire time about his carelessness, but it was little use, he couldn't hear me over the sound of the nearby freeway.
Within a few minutes we make it to the car, and there in open view on the dashboard is his cell phone... so much for easily calling for help, since I didn't own a cell phone then. That's when it hit me... the keys were in the ignition. In the on position. I placed a hand on the hood and it's warm to the touch on a cold night. :facepalm: I yelled over the sound of the freeway at my dad about locking the keys in the car, with the car running. To which he smiled, opened his door and got in proceeding to buckle his belt. I shook my head, climbed in convinced it would run out of gas before he could put it in reverse. Apparently you can't lock the doors from the outside if it's running... how we made it to a gas station, I'll never know. One of the few things he said the rest of the night was "This is something we will never speak of to anyone"... hello world.
A couple years later... Oh how far the apple has fallen...
I had my first new car, a 2003 Neon. CHP managed to convince me it was a better idea not to take my '84 on the pavement again, and in my walking the first dealership I came to was a Dodge dealership and bought the cheapest car with A/C on the lot... oh how I wish I would have just kept walking. Suffice to say, bought.
At the time I was working a bunch of overtime, and nearly always barely awake. One night a little too close to sleeping and decided to pull over and sleep on the way home from work. I got about 45 minutes into my nap before a flashlight was in my face and a very curious police officer asking how much I had to drink. After explaining I was on my way home from work and so exhausted I decided to just pull over and sleep some rather than wreck he was satisfied and told me to drive home, he even offered to follow and hit the siren if it looked like I was about to fall asleep and go into the orchard!
Once I got home, I decided the night felt good and I'd just sleep on the lawn furniture in the backyard. The next day I discovered I was locked out. Luckily I didn't have to work that day, so I searched everywhere I could between the house and the car, around the pool. They were just gone. My Ace Hardware spare key was able to unlock the door and turn in the ignition, and start the car for a second or two, but that was it, found out the car had an immobilizer. By this point my '84 Toy was once again street legal, so I drove that for a few days hoping the keys would turn up.
After about two weeks, I'd given up. I called the dealership back (who had said around $300 for a key when I realized my spare was worthless) and asked that I just stop by to have them match my current key and new key to the car. That was when I found out they needed to have the car to program the key to it. I had to tow the car, to the dealership, to get a key. :facepalm:
After becoming an official AAA member, I had the car towed to the dealership, had the new key made and drove home. I walked inside, and there, on the floor, was the dog. Chewing on a rabbit's foot keychain. With the original car key on it.
