Share your locked yourself out stories here

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I locked myself out last night and want stories so I can point at other people who are as dumb or dumber and laugh at them.

I was heading over to a friend’s for dinner and laundry. I grabbed my mail on the way out so I had my keys in one hand and the mail in the other. I popped the trunk and put the laundry basket in. I meant to drop in the mail but got my hands confused and dropped the keys instead and closed the trunk before I could stop myself. Fortunately a neighbor was home and let me use her phone to call a friend with a spare house key. Unfortunately she didn’t know where my spare was but she did have the spare for another friend who also has my spare but who wasn’t home. So Friend 1 drove to my place, picked me up and drove over to Friend 2’s place, which we entered and raided for every key we could find. Drove back to my place and were relieved to discover that one of the keys was indeed mine so I could get inside and grab a spare car key.

Another locked out story which was totally not my fault so I don’t feel bad about it, I had the car running to warm up while I cleaned off some snow and the car door locked on its own. Fortunately my landlord was in the onsite office so she was able to open my apartmnt door.

2

I locked myself out of a two-story condo years ago and the only open window was on the second floor above the porch. I had to stack chairs and boxes up in order to get on the porch roof and then jump headfirst into the window. I was half-way in, ass in the air, when the window closed on me. I looked like Pooh stuck in the rabbit hole. By the time I wiggled through I was quite concerned I’d be seeing myself on Americas Funniest Home Videos – “Neighbor Stuck In Window!” But that didn’t happen.

So far as I know.

3

I have a couple. A couple years ago, on a VERY cold night, me ‘n’ Mr. K went outside with the phone to watch a lunar eclipse with my dad (who was on the phone). We locked ourselves out but were able to call Mr. K’s friend who has a key. We only froze for about 15 minutes.

The other time was pretty embarrassing. I was at a work function and got totally shitfaced and got a ride home from my boss (who was also shitfaced, though not as bad as me). When I got home, I realized I was locked out and had to go through the window with her headlights shining on my drunken ass as I dropped head-first through the opening. I called in sick the next day.

4

It was about five years ago; I was at a friend’s house planning some project or other with them. When we were done, we watched the curling at the winter olympics - this finished in the small hours of the morning. Only when I got up to go did I realise that, because I’d driven there in my brand new car, I didn’t have my house key attached to the car key.
I got home at 2 in the morning and equivocated for a while between sleeping in the car (too cold - February, no blanket and work the next day anyway) or attempting to wake up the missus (two floors up, very soundly asleep). I tried ringing the doorbell, but it wasn’t loud enough, neither was the phone, which kept going to voicemail after five rings. I resorted to… yep… tossing pebbles up at the window. It took the best part of an hour to wake her, and she was not best pleased.

ETA: there was just no possibility of forcing a window - they’re UPVC triple-glazed on the ground and first floors and although it’s possible, it would take severe damage to get them open from the outside.

5

About 6 years ago I went canoeing on the Baraboo River with a friend. I parked my truck at the take out point and then I hopped in his car with the canoe and we went upriver and put in. The canoe trip took about 4 hours longer than we anticipated, it was 10pm, and as we walked up to my truck I realized I had left my keys in his car, at least 8 hours by canoe back the way we came.

Luckily I remembered I had a spare truck key in my wallet, so we drove back to his car and went our separate ways.

3 hours later I pulled into my parking spot and realized that my keys were STILL in his car and I was locked out of my 2nd floor apartment on the NW side of Milwaukee. With the bars on the door and windows there was no way I was going to be able to break in.

So I drove to my girlfriend’s house (who was out of town) and broke into her house by dismantling a window in the back of the house with my trusty Leatherman tool.

6

When I was in veterinary school I worked in a pet store for a while. A customer picked up a special order consisting of several hundred dollars worth of Koi (fancy goldfish). He loaded his boxes into his trunk, inadvertently dropping his keys into the trunk, then closed the trunk.

It was a hot day in August. By the time a locksmith arrived and popped his trunk, he was them owner of several hundred dollars worth of dead Koi.

BTW, the pet store was owned by a real skuzzbag. Animal purchases had a 12/12 guarantee. That’s twelve minutes or twelve feet from the door, whichever came first.

7

This is funny.

8

I was afraid this story would end with you posting from the Great Beyond after your friend killed you and left your body in the woods.

9

I locked myself out of my house soon after I’d moved to a new town (so I didn’t have anyone who had spare keys nearby).

I asked the police for help and one of them broke in in under two minutes. :eek: :cool:

10

One cold and snowy Saturday, I looked at the clock, realized I was running a trifle late, grabbed my shoes and my coat and walked out the door–which locked behind me as it always did. As I walked down the hall towards the outside door, I patted my pocket for my keys. No keys there. I then checked my other pockets. Nope. No keys there either. Then I walked over to the rental office, thinking “I hope someone’s there”. I was in luck, someone was there, gave me the spare keys to my apartment. Five or ten minutes later, I’d walked over to my apartment, unlocked the door, picked up my keys, and returned the spare to the office.

For moments of panic, and thoughts of ways of getting into a locked room which did not involve having the keys, though, nothing beats the following story. (Err, nothing that involves me, anyway).

Saturday morning. I’d taken the Ph. D. Qualifying exam, which meant I’d been warmly dressed, and carrying a large pile of textbooks, some kleenex and some cough drops. So, it is not surprising that I had perhaps dropped my keys. Anyway, post exam, I let myself into my office, and deposited the stack of books. Then I left, making sure the door was locked behind me(the kind of lock where you push a button to lock it).

Walked back to my dorm room. As I climbed the stairs, I checked my right pocket for the keys. No keys. Checked left pocket, no keys. Checked hip pockets, still no keys. Checked right pocket again. Starting to panic. Keys must be in the office. Office mate not expected on Saturday. Professor not expected on Saturday. Don’t know who else would have keys. Hey, my friend Mr. Smith knows how to pick locks. But, if I look him up in the phone book, there will be 17 Smiths with the same first name, can I identify his apartment by the address? What if he’s not home?

Panicky, I start to retrace my steps, in the probably futile hope that I dropped the keys along the path as I was walking to or from the exam. Going downstairs, I realize that I jingle. This is odd. I start patting myself, trying to isolate the jingle. It’s coming from the belly pocket of my sweatshirt. Where I don’t normally store stuff–even apart from the fact that I don’t wear clothes with pockets in the belly area all that often. Reach in, Aha, My keys.

11

Hahaha, you are not that far off! When I said “oh shit, I think my keys are in your car”, his first statement was “you son of a bitch, I’m going to strangle you!”

12

Yeah, them crazy euphemisms.

13

A couple of years ago, my husband and moved into a used mobile home. One summer evening shortly after moving in, we were cooking steaks on the grill on our deck and while my husband was by the grill, I brought him the plate of steaks and closed the door behind me so we didn’t waste the A/C. I didn’t realize the door was locked.

As soon as he heard the door shut, my husband swung around with a panicked look on his face and said, “Tell me you have keys!” He’s always screwing with me like that, so I didn’t think anything of it. But he went over and jiggled the doorknob. Yup, we were locked out.

Luckily, the home had the original crappy mobile home windows. So we walked around the house (me in socks) and looked for any vulnerable window. We found one that was missing the outside pane of glass, but it was at a point where it was really high up in relation to the other windows.

I had to climb on my husbands back and grab the window, wiggle it out of the frame, have him hoist me up and through the window. The couch was up against the window and he hoisted me with such force that I flew over the couch.

We felt like such idiots, having to break into our own house. Two months later, we had all new windows.

14

This didn’t happen to me, but to my friend who I used to work with in DC. Our office was a rowhouse in a crappy neighborhood so there was a iron gate on the door, an outer door, small area and then an inner front door. Somehow these were controlled by different keys and one day when she was the last to leave she got herself locked between the two front doors. No cell phones back then. I believe she had to sit in there all night till folks arrived the next morning.

15

I used to do this a lot. The most embarassing one was the time I pulled into a self-serve car wash, hopped out of the truck, and closed the door behind me. With the door locked, the keys in the ignition and the motor running. No problem…I have a slimjim in the toolbox. Which is locked, and the key to which is on my keyring. :smack:

The guy from AAA was very nice and didn’t laugh…much.

16

Slightly tangential, since it relates to being locked out of a car, and the lockee wasn’t me:

A guy I worked with once locked his keys in his car while getting ready to head home. Worse, he’d left the engine running. He came back into the office in a panic.

I knew from personal experience[1] that his car (a Mk I Ford Fiesta) could be opened easily with a piece of flexible packing tape - you crease it, poke the fold through the door-frame, loop it over the lock capstan behind the window and pull up. And the office had plenty of that tape lying around.

So, I cut a piece off and went out with him to the car-park, and had the door open in a few seconds, with no damage. Co-worker was amazed and delighted. He asked if he could keep the piece of tape. Of course!

“Great”, he said, “I’ll keep it in the glove compartment in case this happens again.” :smack:

[1] I only knew this trick because I’d locked my keys in the same model of car previously and had to call out the RAC (vehicle recovery) - the guy who turned up showed me how to open it. No, I’m not a car thief.

17

My freshman year of college, I was on the 5th floor of my dorm. I had never had to carry keys up to that point in my life, and so I was constantly, just constantly, forgetting them in my room. To get back in, I could either call security, who might take an hour to get there, or I could call up to the room hoping that my roomies were there (and they usually weren’t) and were willing to walk down five flights and back up again. Both of these options were a huge pain in the ass for everyone.

So one day, musta been in spring because everyone’s windows were open, I had had a rotten day, I was in a hurry, and I had forgotten my keys AGAIN. Furious with myself and the entire stupid world, I followed some guy in through the main front door and stomped all the way up to my room. No one home at my place, so I knocked on my neighbor’s door and asked if I could use their window.

You guessed it: I shimmied along the outside ledge of the dorm on the fifth floor just like they do in the movies and crawled in my open bedroom window. This ledge was not meant for human shimmying. It was rounded, sloped downward, and wasn’t even as wide as my feet and it’s a wonder I wasn’t killed. It was especially stupid/astonishing considering what a colossal klutz I am normally. I can only imagine that, Sith-like, pure rage made me strong and sure.

18

What? She owns a washer and dryer and I don’t, so once a week I take over my laundry, we have dinner and hang out for a few hours. Saves me a few bucks a week and the annoyance of dealing with the laundromat plus a free meal.

19

Ugh. I still feel dumb when I think about this.

We lived in a very old building, and our apartment had its own entrance, quite cool and funky, that involved going through a double set of doors through what would have the cold pantry of the original house. To enter, you went through a gate, then through the pantry, then down a hall, and then into our apartment.

So like this:

Locked gate --> 1st pantry door --> 2nd pantry door --> apartment door

The gate, 1st pantry door, and apartment doors all locked. The 2nd pantry door had been unlocked since I moved in. I wasn’t too concerned about security, but it always annoyed me a bit that the 2nd door didn’t lock. The lock itself was fairly old. For some reason, I mentioned this once to a friend, who told me that he had an old house door that had a toggle switch for locking, but that it took him a while to figure that out because he wasn’t looking in the right place, it ended up being some unfamiliar mechanism on the underside of the knob. A ha, I thought, maybe my lock is the same!

So, I went out to the door, wearing something like old sweatpants and flip-flops, and futzed around with the knob until I found the toggle switch and flipped it. Somehow, while investigating the lock, I had moved from the inside to the outside to get a better view (I guess, who knows what I was thinking). I am now completely triumphant that I found the toggle to lock the door. Even as I was pulling the door shut, now shut and LOCKED, this voice inside my head was saying “hey, this is great, now you can lock your door, but it probably would be better not to lock it until you actually have the keys in hand …” and then it was all over and I was locked out. It is still a marvel to me that I was very calmly thinking that WHILE my hand was pulling the door shut.

And I had something baking inside, so in addition to being locked out, I was convinced the entire apartment would go up in flames. I had no money, no cell phone, none of the neighbors were home. I ended up walking down the street to a large apartment building with a doorman, who gave me the number of a locksmith and let me use the phone at the front desk to call. It cost an insane amount of money, but there wasn’t any alternative.

20

This didn’t happen to me, but it was my fault…

Last year I lived in an old run down university-owned house with a bunch of friends. Since we all knew eachother, we never bothered to lock our bedroom doors. Sometime during the first week I lost a shoe or something so my friend and I set out to find it. We searched the living room, kitchen, and started on the bedrooms. During this process we managed to lock the door of my friend Sam’s room (I swear, it was the only bedroom in the house that locked automatically). We figured it wouldn’t be that bad until Sam wanders out of the bathroom, keyless, wearing only a towel :smack:

The University key office insisted that he come himself to the office (across campus) to pick up a replacement key. Now Sam was about a foot taller than any other guy living in the house, so we wandered around looking for clothing for him, but didn’t have much luck. Finally another housemate managed to break in with a credit card.

Luckily Sam’s still my friend :slight_smile: