The Pink Shoe Diaries

I have been living a lie for the past 3 years.

I always thought it was impossible to get locked out of my car. I drive a 2004 Civic, the kind that locks with a button you keep on your key ring.



You have to press the large gray button once to lock the doors (twice to hear it beep. i love the beep! my neighbors? not so much), and the small gray button twice to unlock it. I have definitiely left my keys in the car while I pump gas, threw them in there and shut the door while I rummaged in the trunk..all the while lingering under the misaprehension that it is physically impossible to lock the keys in the car because I would have to have the keys in my hand, pressing the button, to lock the door.

This is part of the reason the Civic was so attractive to me, because I was NOTORIOUS for locking my keys in my car back when I drove my Dodge Spirit (RIP!). I must have done it at least once a month. Once I did it in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot and tried to call my parents but they weren't home so I did the logical thing and called the fire department who showed up in the big red truck, sirens blasting, blocking off the whole parking lot to let me, a wretched asshole, into my car. Another time, I was at the Walmart in Quincy and called a friend to ask her dad who was chief of police in BRAINTREE to send someone over to help me. That officer was none to pleased, believe me. In fact his first question to me when he pulled up was "WHO DO YOU KNOW?".

Really I was a helpless fool who should not be trusted with keys.

Hence, being psyched that you can't be locked out of a Honda Civic.

There is a loophole, however. And today I fell right through it.

When I left the house this morning, I was laden down with a few things: a bag of groceries I was bringing to work, a shawl I was lending a coworker, my lunch and my Nalgene bottle not to mention my handbag. So I unlocked and opened the passenger side door, put all my crap on the seat, hit the "lock button" (why, I don't know), threw the keys on the seat and shut the door. Then when I went around to the drivers side, I was surprised to see it was locked. Back at the passender side: also locked!

Sacre Bleu!!!

Luckily, I have a spare key in case I am not home and for some reason Adam has to move my car. So after waking Adam up by ringing the doorbell repeatedly to let me in (he was psyched) I grabbed my other set of keys and was on my way.

I am a little shaken though. All those times I thought I was a-ok throwing my keys in the car and shutting the door, I was really a ticking time bomb waiting to be locked out and then call every person in my cell phone to come get me.

So all youe Civics drivers, be ye forewarned. You CAN be locked out of your car.

(Of course everyone probably already knows this. Meanwhile I didnt even know there was a way to make the overhead light come on when you open the door until last week)