This last weekend, I was visiting my brother in Nashville. While I was up there, I went to visit a friend on Monday. On the way back to my brother’s apartment, I was on the phone with my mom. I pulled into his apartment complex, parked, and took two steps out of the car, still talking to my mom, when I realized I didn’t have my keys.
I turned around and looked in the window of my truck.
There they were, laughing at me through the window as they sat in the ignition.
And along with my truck key is my brother’s spare apartment key.
And I’m still on the phone with my mom.
I tell her what I’ve done, and we begin to try to figure out what to do. It’s a bit of a problem because the spare key for the truck is back in Tullahoma (an hour and a half away).
The first thing I did was go to the apartment complex office to see if they could help.
At the front desk was a girl who clearly knew less about cars than even me, so a faceless voice from the back room carries on a conversation with her about what I can do after I explain my ridiculous situation.
Me: “Do you guys have anything that could help?”
Receptionist: “Do we have anything that could help?”
Mysterious voice from the back: “No, we can’t help him because we could be held liable.”
I promise I wouldn’t have sued them.
Me: “Well do you have any tools that I could use myself that might help?” (I have absolutely nothing).
Receptionist: “Well do we have any tools that he could use himself that might help?” (I feel like there’s an echo…)
Voice: “No.”
Receptionist: “No. Sorry.”
Me (to no one in particular because I’m not sure who to thank-faceless voice or the receptionist?): “Well thanks anyway!”
So I call mom back to see if we can come up with anymore bright ideas.
I text my uncle, but he’s still in school teaching and doesn’t get the text.
So then my dad gets on the phone. This is where it gets interesting.
After a few necessary fatherly jokes at my expense, he begins to tell me that he’s done this to himself before in our truck and that he was able to break in. I’m pretty sure he said he did it in the church parking lot.
My father, the preacher: car thief? In the church parking lot. How many members would have paid to see that??
He asks if I have any tools.
I basically have my wallet and the contents inside it, my phone, iPod, and jacket. I’m sure Macgyver would have made something with all of this, but no such look for me.
He asks if I have any credit cards or anything, student ID card, anything.
I pick out a handy Barnes and Noble gift card and a library card.
So I jump in the bed of the truck and place the phone, on speaker phone, on top of the truck as my dad attempts to explain to his vehicle-inept child how to break in through a back sliding window.
Well this goes on for a while with him instructing me. He even suggests I poke around in the neighbors trash or something to see if I can find a tool or a hanger or something.
I declined that suggestion.
All the while, random people are coming and going through the apartment complex parking lot, staring at this random boy in the back of a truck attempting to jam some cards in a window to unhook a latch while he’s speaking to a man on speaker phone giving him instructions.
And yet none of them seemed the slightest bit concerned about this.
Not a concerned, “Hey do you need some help?”
Or even a, “What are you doing you crazy teen?!”
Nope, nothing. Is attempted car theft a normal practice in my brother’s complex??
Well that brings up a whole new set of concerns.
But despite the neighbor’s apathy toward what looked like attempted grand theft auto, I continue on shoving random things at the window to get it to open.
Nothing worked.
At this point I’ve been locked out of the truck for a good hour and a half. And did I mention I have to go to the bathroom and really have had to since I locked myself out? Oh and my library card looks like it’s gotten into a fight with a piranha.
And lost.
That’ll be interesting to explain the next time I check out books…
My brother is on his way back from work at this point, but he works a good thirty minutes away in Franklin.
So I give up and just sit in the back of the truck bed on my iPod using my brother’s wifi, which luckily I can pick up from his second-floor apartment.
During this time, I read random Facebook updates from people including a musician in Nashville who admits his car has been stuck at the Y for a week because he lost his keys at the Y.
I feel marginally less stupid.
He uploaded a picture of the four or five spares he bought. I make a mental note to do the same.
Luckily, my brother shows up and, in his suit from the work day, begins attacking the back window with a knife to try to pry it open.
I watch for a minute, grateful for his help, but then a more pressing need takes over and I say, “Could we uh go on up to your apartment? I need to go to the bathroom.”
He hands me the keys, and I rush upstairs as he continues attacking my truck.
Let’s just say knives work better than library cards for virtually everything but checking out books, and he finally gets it open.
But the sliding window is still really small. So I reach in the back and grab an ice scraper from the back floor of the truck and manage to fit an arm and shoulder and head through the window, and precariously reach with the ice scraper for the unlock button on the driver’s side.
And finally, I hit it.
Yes, it would have been easier to have called a locksmith.
But this was cheaper. And gave you a story to read.
Oh, and tomorrow, I’m going to get a spare key made before I head to Freed.
