So my friend and I go to the airport to pick up his mom’s car, which she’d left in short-term parking. Lot “A” number whatever, but it’s going to be the first one we see when we get to the lot. Only the keys aren’t under the floor mat, where she’d left them, and we proceed to tear the car apart, looking for them.
So he calls his mom, and she says, “maybe they’re here, maybe they’re there, maybe you should go find airport security.”
Finally he says, “Mom, why do you have a blue plastic shark on your dashboard?”
“A what?”
“A blue plastic shark on your dashboard?”
“A what?”
Yes, yes, we were in the wrong car. The wrong black PT Cruiser, unlocked. And the first one we saw when we drove into lot “A” at the airport.
So sorry to the real owner of the black PT Cruiser. I’m pretty sure we didn’t put the shark back where we found it, and the papers in your glove compartment are in a totally different order. Plus I’m pretty sure I didn’t get that black plastic cover thingie on the console between the seats to fit back the way it was supposed to.
But we weren’t trying to steal anything, I promise.
Great message. And an actual note on the dashboard would probably have been a good thing too. Parking at an airport, likely a surveillance camera caught you anyway.
In the mid-1990s, I drove a dark blue Volvo 240D. I spent far too much time trying to unlock the wrong car. At least once I found a smiling owner standing behind me, with the invariable comment, “I do that about once a week.”
I now drive the single most common vehicle in my area. If anyone wants to rob banks in eastern Connecticut, use a silver Odyssey as your getaway ride. They’ll NEVER find you.
In the mid 90’s I had a white Honda Civic and apparently they only make a certain number of different keys because on more then one occasion I unlocked and almost drove away in the wrong car.
I once helped load groceries into the back of a minivan that turned out to be the wrong vehicle. Her key unlocked it, too. And it gets better. The lady who had me load it up apparently then walked off to go shopping at another store in the same mall. So when the actual owner showed up, she just got in her van and drove away unawares with the original lady’s groceries. The original lady found me a while later and was indignant that someone had stolen her stuff (she had gone to her actual vehicle and, of course, discovered it empty). Things worked out well as the other vehicle then returned and that lady asked why there were groceries in her van. We all had a laugh.
Back in the '80’s a neighbor went to the mall in their black Ford Escort. Upon returning home they discovered a brand new and rather expen$ive camera in the trunk. It seems that another shopper had come out of the mall and deposited the camera in our neighbor’s Escort, thinking it was their own.
I don’t recall whether they made any effort to get the camera back to its rightful owner.
When I had a Black Cavalier I did that all the time too. It was worse when I could hear the locks clicking and still couldn’t get in because MY car was about two spaces over.
I had a Toyota Corolla in the mid-70s. If you pushed just a little on exterior of the driver’s door panel at just the right place, it unlocked the car. It was keyless entry way before it was common. One day I got into ‘my’ Corolla only to find the ignition key wouldn’t work and the interior of the car was different.
My mom unlocked and cranked someone else’s green F250 once in the mall parking lot. It was only after she checked the rearview mirror to back up that she realized “Wait a minute! I don’t have a gun rack!” For quite a few years, it was pretty good odds that, if you locked yourself out of a Ford vehicle, someone else’s random Ford key would unlock it. The last time I recall helping someone by using my own key was around 2005. My Aerostar key unlocked a lady’s Crown Vic. She was a bit shocked. (At the time, I had about six or eight Ford keys on my ring, since I was the designated keeper of spares for my mom’s taxicabs.)
Well, there’s a little more too: my friend’s mom had left the keys in the ignition - not under the floor mat - so the battery was dead, and we had to jump it. And part of the cover of the air filter covered the terminals, so we had to take that apart. So I’m pretty sure if you want to steal a car, the airport is the place to go, because nobody looked twice at us.
My mom’s Ford Aerostar door key worked in the ignition of our work E250 van. It was odd that it worked and odder that I figured it out. Just a random fluke that I put the wrong key in the ignition.
I was coming out of a shopping mall a few months ago, went to my car, put my hand on the door handle, and only then noticed that there was someone in the driver’s seat, looking mildly alarmed at me.
I’m surprised at how similar a 2013 Gray Jetta and a 2013 Gray Accord are. I have an Accord and at least once a week almost get into my sisters car. We both work at the same place and after 12 hours of work it’s easy to not notice that I’m walking up to the wrong car until I realize the handles are different or the keyless entry isn’t working.
Turns out, I guess it was a good idea to have my university stickers in the windows. Did that in my last two cars, always knew which one was mine. I can totally see myself doing all of the above, otherwise!
Someone on our neighborhood website reported that they had bought four bottles of wine and loaded them into his car. He returned the cart to the cart corral, and got back to his car to find the wine missing. It was a whole big mishegoss. A daring daylight robbery in the few seconds it took to return the cart.
A few hours later someone on the website writes, “Do you drive a white SUV? Because someone left four bottles of wine in my husband’s”. You guessed it, wrong car.
Years ago a GF and I were drinking at a local bar. She was well and truly trashed and decided to drive herself home. (Yes, I know, but it was years ago and did you ever try to stop a friend from driving home drunk when her mind is set? You can get punched that way)
So she’s goes out to the lot, and comes in screaming and crying and demanding cops because someone trashed her car-torn up upholstery, crap everywhere, busted mirror. The bar owner goes out with her, and yup, you guessed it. Same car, same color, but her’s was much further back in the lot.
The bar owner called her husband, having finally decided to take control of the situation.
I was on the other side of that one time - I was waiting for someone in my car, and some random guy hopped into the passenger’s side seat and started talking to me. He finally looked over at me, and his reaction was priceless - I guess you can imagine.
I drive a small silver Corolla - I have pinstriping and a couple of decals on the car so I can tell which is mine in the parking lot. Every parking lot has about 25 small silver cars in it, it seems.
