My brother is staying with me. I love my brother, however he is a 16 year old boy who has recently gotten a license which is always somewhat alarming. Apparently you don’t have to be a mom to use the “air brake” from the passenger seat.
So I have been trying to give him tips. My Honda is like a race car compared to the truck he normally uses, so I have allowed the opportunity to drive it. And we all know- no good deed goes unpunished. I made a point of telling my brother that you “cannot lock your keys in my car because you have to lock the driver side door with a key”, my auto lock does not work from the driver side. Apparently this comment is enough for Murphy’s law to burn my ass.
During a trip to Chapel Hill to buy a coffee table, I locked my keys in my car. This is a deceptively simple problem. It was complicated by the fact that my spare key was at home, in my bedside table, 30+ minutes away, by the fact that my purse, and hence my wallet, cell phone and important numbers were all locked in the car, and that I was sitting in a parking lot with a large coffee table.
The people I purchased the coffee table from were very nice and extremely helpful. Unfortunately, AAA was not. I called them, trying to get a locksmith through my mom’s AAA account. Since my mother was not with me, however, they informed me that there was nothing they could do to help. Unless of course I wanted to become a AAA member? Then they could send someone! I believe this is know as extortion. I agreed to join but apparently stumped the AAA operators since I could not pay for my account by credit card as the card was locked in the car.
Eventually they agreed to send someone if, when they arrived, they would wait with me while I called AAA and paid. Unfortunately she forgot to tell dispatch to send someone. Fourth-five minutes later I called back, re-explained the situation to an operator and was put on hold. After ten minutes on hold, I was suddenly transferred to a number which rang for 2 minutes before I hung up and called again. After re-re explaining, this operator was slightly more helpful, and agreed to send someone “within 45 minutes”. Fifty minutes later, I called again.
At this point, the free phone in the grocery store down the street was about to go away because the store was closing. The grocery store was far more patient than I had any right to expect. I spent 30+ minutes on a phone which requests you limit your time to three minutes, all the while wearing a name badge for the local university’s arch rival school. Woops. Anyway, AAA said that the people were ‘running late’ and should be there in ten more minutes. Twenty minutes later and three hours after I arrived, a man unlocked my car. Then he drove away.
I guess the service is free, right?
