Why on earth did you drive away in her robe?
That happened to me after I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
Many years ago my live-in boyfriend and I had gone up the mountains with another couple to camp for a few days. Each couple took a car up, parked, and then we hiked a bit to get to where we wanted to camp.
We get to the camp and for some reason think about the keys - don’t remember why, maybe it had a bottle opener on it or something - and the boyfriend realizes that he left them sitting on the front seat of the car when he reached over the back seat to grab a backpack. So we hike on back to the car to get them and realize that even out in the relatively-middle-of-nowhere our habits had held and we’d locked the doors.
I had an old Reliant K-car at the time, which has those old-school mushroom-shaped lock knobs, and we had left the windows cracked to keep the temp down in the car. That made it just a matter of removing a bootlace and putting a slipknot in the end of it, then “fishing” with it through the window crack until I managed to lasso the door lock knob. I wasn’t even too ticked off at the boyfriend because I got to show off my McGuyver skills.
We headed back to camp and eventually wander out to gather wood. The boyfriend comes back with an impressive windfall for the fire…and no keys. He still had the caribiner-type clip on his belt loop, but the keys were no longer connected to it. We beat bushes for a while, but it was near dark and we eventually gave up.
Naturally, I had left my set at home so I wouldn’t lose them in the woods.
Luckily, we did have that other couple and their Kia there with us, so we all drove back down the mountain the next afternoon to retrieve my set of keys from the house. Getting in involved a relatively death-defying (or at least broken-arm-defying) shimmy around the house a story up; we had roomates that got us in to the house, but we had a stout lock on our room’s door, so we had to go out one 2nd floor window and creep around the corner of the house to our window. We got the keys and went back up the mountain to finish our camping trip. I don’t recall that I gave the boyfriend another copy of those keys after that…
I was a Sociology graduate student.
Got into a discussion with other grad students about the standard socio topics “sexual deviance”, “transvestites”, “feminism”, etc and held that a behavior was only an act of transvestism (transvestitism?) (uh, cross-dressing) if the garment(s) in question had a valid purpose for one biological sex but required phony parts for the other sex to make use of them: essentially nothing but bras and jock straps. Anything else was strictly a matter of being unconventional in fashion sense by gender. From there we got into a discussion of skirts, and they knew I was into feminist theory & all so why didn’t I ever wear a skirt? they asked.
(This is all relevant. And worth it. Trust me on this).
On our next raid of the Salvation Army used clothing store, I found a simple wrap-around denim skirt that came down past my knees and easy to tie on and bought it.
I also, concurrent with all this, taught undergrads (grad students are expected to teach some intro-level courses) and decided to challenge them to break at least one informal rule where they saw nothing immoral or unethical but knew that it constituted unorthodox behavior, and on the day they were to tell of their insurrections, I wore my skirt, not only to class but in transit on the LIRR train and across campus on foot, etc, and yes I got a few giggles and a round of applause when I entered the classroom so attired.
Skip forward to end of day: I ride the train home, go up to my room, reach in shallow little skirt pocket for door keys and OOPS I seem to have lost my keys. I have a duplicate copy to lend out to friends if necessary but of course it’s inside my room. Only way in the room is up a ladder and in through the unlatched second-floor window. No problem, I’m agile and I have good balance.
ELABORATION: I’m agile, I have good balance, and I’m currently attired in a skirt!!
Yes, although I moved pretty fast to get the ladder up there, I very rapidly had the undivided attention of all my housemates who were not going to miss the chance to see me climbing a ladder in a skirt. I’m just lucky no one had their camera where it was easily accessible.
I was inspired to post this story by Elenfair’s sad tale
A couple of years ago, my mother locked herself out of her house. At 10:50, she had all her stuff organized, and was waiting for a friend to pick her up for a meeting. Friend was expected at 11:00-11:10. So Mom walked out the front door to weed the garden, intending to leave the door unlocked, but forgot. No problem, she could get in through the garage. Well, no, she couldn’t. The garage door opened–but the door from the garage into the house was inexplicably locked–no one ever locks that door. So she walked back out front to wait for her friend, and weeded her yard.
At the meeting, several minor things did not go according to plan, because something was wanted which presently located inside my mother’s house. When she explained why she didn’t have all her stuff, her friends said “You need a cell phone. Situations like this are what cell phones are for. Good thing someone was picking you up”.
No. First of all, the nearest spare house key was an hour away with my dad at work. If she’d called him at once, and he left immediately, he would not have been able to get to the house in time to bring the stuff to the meeting. Secondly, had she had a cell phone, it would have been in her purse, and thus locked inside the house. Thirdly, had the friend not been giving her a ride, she would not have locked herself out, because she wouldn’t have gone outside to weed at that time.
I think Mom just waited until Dad got home at his usual time to get back in the house. They have taken steps so that if this situation happens again, Mom will be able to let herself into the house more easily.
Not technically a "locked myself out’ story : Senior year of college. Lived in a crummy apartment with 2 other girls - accompanied by an against-the-rules cat.
Walked out the front door, which was equipped only with an in-the-knob lock. Which sometimes came loose and “locked” the door so that it could only be opened from the inside. It chose this day to do this.
Nobody was inside, and the back door was chained so we couldn’t go in that way. And if we called the landlord to get us in, the landlord would have seen the 4-legged roommate (who was by far not the only unauthorized pet). Crap. :smack:
Fortunately we were saved - a classmate of mine was dating the girl in the apartment next to ours… and he happened to know that you could go up into the attic space - and down the next apartment’s attic trapdoor. Nice security, huh? but it sure saved our tails that time! He broke into our place, came out the front door, let us in, and we shut the cat into the bedroom before calling the landlord’s repair line.
A couple years later, in a different apartment, I actually did lock myself out by pulling the locked door shut behind me. Same arrangement with the attics this time, so my neighbor’s teenage son got me in that time.
Then there was the time, on my honeymoon, where we were loading our car on the last day. I opened the hatchback, spied the bottle of Windex and paper towls, decided I should clean the rear window (salt-encrusted, we were at the beach). Set my keys down, closed the hatch, and immedately went :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: That day is why we swear that AAA saved our marriage!
Oh, and here’s a cautionary tale of badly-located car lockouts: 2 years ago, on a field trip with the Girl Scout troop, we stopped at McDonalds for dinner before proceeding to our final destination. After dinner, the troop leader got a panicked look and started fumbling through her purse. No keys.
One of the other moms was a AAA member and called for help, and they stayed there while the rest of us proceeded on. Sure enough - AAA got there and the keys were in the car. This was 90 miles from home so if AAA hadn’t been able to help, we’d have been stuck.
Three months later, same group of Scouts, in a national park. Same story, same mom. Only this time, our cell phones didn’t work and the AAA person I spoke with from the park office had no clue where I was talking about. Fortunately this time, another mom procured a wire coat hanger and broke into Mom#1’s car. We now joke that mom#1 is not allowed on trips unless she brings a spare key.
Of course I don’t joke tooooo much… a couple months ago, Mom#2 (she of the coat-hanger locksmithing) misplaced her keys on a scout trip 100 miles from home (we found them after 15 minutes). The three of us have been together in scouts for 4 years now so I figure I’m next :eek:
I’ve locked myself out of the house only once (so far, touch wood).
I was 18-ish and still living at home. The boyfriend had just dropped me at the door and driven off when I realised I didn’t have my keys. No amount of bashing, knocking on windows or hollering would awaken my parents, so I settled myself down for a night on the front verandah.
My neighbour’s daughter drove by just about then and I ended up sleeping on their sofa. I got into a huge amount of trouble for staying out all night and my parents never believed me that I had slept next door, even though it would have been simple enough to check out.
35 years ago.
Ahh, the Girl Scout story reminded me of a time that I’m sure has you all beat!
My babysitter at the time (I was probably 12) was a scout leader (or whatever they’re called), so I ended up going to alot of the functions. Once, when the girls were doing their thing, I somehow locked the keys inside her minivan with my fingers caught in the locked door! She started freaking out, and some very witty ideas were thought of very quickly to get the door open. I think we opened it by putting a broom in one of the back windows, and pushing the automatic locks. It’s been awhile, I don’t really remember. Luckily, my fingers were caught in such a way that it wasn’t really smashing them, but my hand was simply stuck.
Ouch!
Wow! What a thunderstorm! We haven’t had one with this much rain and wind for a LONG TIME. :::Family walks outside to front porch::: CLICK! OH SHIT!!!
Four quick ones:
- In 2002, I road-tripped with four friends to Antwerp, Belgium. The last day there, as we are debarking from the car, I decide that I don’t feel like lugging my jacket around, so I want to leave it in the trunk. Unfortunately, this starts a trend and everybody else puts their jackets in the trunk too. Including the driver. Who has the car keys in his jacket pocket. He shuts the trunk, there is half a second of silence, and then he says “Shit!”.
We mill around trying to find someone we can communicate with well enough to call a locksmith. In the end, we find an English-speaking hotel porter who calls one for us. As we sit waiting in the lobby, the porter keeps trying to buy the driver’s hat, but he refuses even as the porter keeps raising the price. He ended up offering three times what my friend gave for it, but he’s not sure he can find another one like it so he refuses. The locksmith (who only speaks Dutch) arrives and we manage to get into the car again.
My friend lost his hat later that day and never saw it again.
- When I go for my semidaily run I detach the apartment key from my keyring and carry only the aforementioned key. You see where this is going, but it happens amazingly rarely, all things considered. This particular day, I was going to help my then girlfriend move into her new apartment, and then we’re going out for dinner and to a party that night.
After my shower, I leave the apartment hastily, and obviously forget to reattach the apartment key, bringing only the keyring. I help her move, and as we return to my apartment I realize my mistake. Instead of fancy dinner we had a quick pizza and then popped into a cab for a 40-kilometer ride to get to my roommate and get his keys. Not one of my best moments.
-
This one didn’t happen to me, but to the aforementioned then girlfriend. We were living together at the time, but I was two time zones away when she closed the self-locking door behind her with the keys still in the apartment. The only extra set of keys were with me. I wasn’t due home for weeks. In the end, she decided to knock on the door of our neighbours, whom we had never spoken to before, and ask if she could climb from their balcony to our balcony and enter through the open balcony door. I’m glad I didn’t have to see her do the Spiderman thing ten meters above the ground, but she did, landed with panache on our balcony and entered.
-
Once again, I was out running with only the apartment key. When I came back after a really long run that left me exhausted and wishing for a shower and a lie-down, I saw that this time I had brought the wrong apartment key, not the one to the self-locking lock.
My parents and a friend who lived close by had spare keys to my apartment. I rang my neighbour’s bell and asked to use his phone, trying to reach my parents. No dice. I didn’t remember the friend’s number, so I walked there instead. He wasn’t home, which was hardly surprising since this was around noon on a weekday. I started walking to another friend’s house (the aforementioned girlfriend, actually) to see if I could hole up there until I could reach someone with extra keys. She wasn’t home either.
In the end, I walked about four kilometers to a hobby store whose owner I know, and asked to use his phone. I managed to reach my father, who informed me that both he and my mother were busy elsewhere and wouldn’t be home for quite some time. I tried to reach my brother, who has keys to my parents’ apartment. No dice. Finally I had to bite the bullet and call a relative of mine who’s a locksmith. He was happy to help, except that he was on a job several hours away.
I borrowed some money for lunch from the store owner and ambled around the city covered in dried sweat and with muscles screaming in protest. Then I spent about an hour outside my apartment waiting for my locksmith relative, with the wind turning said sweat to ice. He did arrive, and let me in, letting me have my long-postponed shower.
I used to work in a computer center that had a key-lock on the door to the department. I worked nights. Sometimes alone. You can see where this is going, right? Fortunately, we had a service window in one wall for walk-up customers to deliver their processing work, and it stayed open. I had to climb up and through this little window to get inside. :smack:
I’ve had a couple, but the most entertaining one was definitely the time I left my wallet (with key inside) in the taxi after a night out. As it was past 2am, I didn’t really want to wake my parents to let me in, so I walked back to meet a friend who I’d shared the taxi with, just before he got home. We returned to my house and he helped me to climb on to the conservatory, so that I could check if my bedroom window was open.
It wasn’t, of course, and to make matters worse my “friend” then decided to spray me with the garden hose. He then added insult to injury by claiming that he had hurt his back and so couldn’t help me down. I was forced to leap six feet into a bush so as to break my fall, which worked, though the bush (like me) was somewhat worse for wear. In the end I went to stay at my friend’s house. My Dad noticed the hole in the bush in the morning, but luckily he didn’t tell my Mum.
I locked myself out of my Ford Focus, which was still running. Parked on Michigan Avenue. During the morning rush hour. I was pregnant at the time.
That reminds me of the Family Guy episode where Peter locks himself into his car. YouTube linky
There was one time I was stopping at an ATM with a friend in the car. I got out, went to the ATM, and suddenly noticed my friend standing next to me.
“I thought you were staying in the car!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“What did you do with the keys?!?”
“What keys?”
“I left them in the car I thought you were staying in! Did you leave the door unlocked?!?”
“D’oh!”
This was bad, very bad. We were on a tight schedule that day, due to some complex plans. We had just a small amount of time to meet someone else at a point some 40 miles away in order to strategically leave my car in a place where he could drive it home later that evening. We then had to book it back to our area where my fiancee would be waiting, and if I wasn’t back in time, there were going to be very very big problems.
The ATM in question was at a mall. Do you know no store in the mall uses wire hangers? We realized we couldn’t possibly be the first to do this, and sure enough, mall security had a slim jim. Two in fact, with which the mall guy and I had at my car doors while my friend dope-smacked himself. Some half an hour late, we got the doors open (leaving me with door latch problems for weeks until it got fixed) and we raced off, just barely making all our destinations before disaster struck.
Have I left anything out? Oh yeah, the friend in question was my best man, and this all happened…on the morning of my wedding day.
Sometime maybe last winter, I think, me and two buddeis were at the bar late. Walked back to my place (close enough to do so - rather not drive) and had ourselves several more.
It was cold as hell outside, but we never allowed smoking indoors, so we made frequent trips to the back porch. At one point, had to have been 3:30 a.m. or later, went to go back in and somebody had locked the door behind them.
Wife was out of the area that night.
After finding the front door similarly locked (not a surprise, as it was supposed to be), I had to knock the door open with my shoulder. Thankfully it was a crappy old place we were renting for entirely too much, so it felt good all the way around.
Does losing my keys count?
I was out jogging at the beach, and managed to drop my keys somewhere in the sand. I spent a good 45 minutes retracing my steps to no avail. Rats!
Fortunately (?) the moonroof on my 98 4Runner was propped open, and I was able to tweak the metal latch that released it. Once I accomplished that, I removed the moonroof and climbed inside. For some reason, no-one in that busy parking lot took notice of this sweaty guy dressed only in shorts and running shoes clambering around on top of the truck. They must have figured that a criminal wouldn’t try such a blantant break-in.
Once I got into the truck, I had access to my wallet, where I had one of those “credit card keys”. Mindful of the warning “do not use in ignition!”, I decided to walk the beach one more time. Thankfully, Og smiled upon me–I found the keys sticking up out of the sand at the edge of the surf. Good thing, too–the tide was coming in. another few minutes and they would’ve been under water.
in my senior year of college at Ball State - the then boyfriend and i spent an entire saturday in southern indiana at the oliver winery for the beanblossom festival, i believe it was called. those of hoosier background will know whereof i speak. 
suffice it to say we enjoyed ourselves entirely too much. neither of us had a lick of sense, but somehow he got us both back to home territory around four or so in the morning - in one piece. as i wandered into (yes, into. OW!) the back door, i suddenly realized i didn’t have my key.
as you can imagine, i was reluctant at best to go and tap on mother’s downstairs window to wake her up. my sister was out of reach (second floor), so i was in a hell of a pickle. nothing to do but start wandering around the perimeter of the house and see if there was an unlocked/open window. meanwhile, the boyfriend is watching all this from his car, wondering what in og i was doing.
we had those big wooden and glass storm windows that latched at the top of the window and were pushed out for ventilation. we left them on year-round because they were heavy and a bitch to relatch. to keep bugs out we used the sliding type screens which could be sized to fit in the inner window and used a small length of wood to keep the storm window pushed open. thankfully, i found the downstairs bathroom window open.
saved.
so, here i am at 4 in the morning, quite drunk, trying to get in the house without waking my mother up, and did i mention that her bedroom was directly opposite the bathroom door and that my motor skills were not what they should be?
i removed the stick, let the storm rest against my back and then started monkeying with the screen. it took me forever to get it to condense enough to get a finger around it and push it closed all the way. finally, I succeed.
i don’t remember dropping it in the tub. i really don’t.
the window was about four feet off the ground. i’m 5’9” so it was roughly chest-high on me – just enough to make it a pain getting through the frame. i raised the interior window as high as it would go, which was about one inch more than it had been. i now had about 15 inches in which to wriggle through.
evidently, that’s when the show really began.
later, the boyfriend said that through his hysterics in the car watching all this, all he could think of was ‘she came in through the bathroom window.’
thanks, mike… :rolleyes:
i was a bit lighter and a lot more limber then. a good thing. Giselle had nothing on me getting in that window, but I do remember hanging upside down with my backside in the air, legs kicking for purchase/balance for quite some time.
to his credit, the boyfriend came to help, but there really wasn’t much he could do – of course the smothered snickers and snorts didn’t exactly improve the situation.
i did finally make it, whispered good night, and made my way to bed. only bounced off the walls going up the stairs a few times. it is with some amazement i recall i didn’t have a hangover the next day. youth, I guess.
naturally, mother heard the entire thing and said she all but stuffed the sheet into her mouth to stifle the laughter. Evidently, the show inside the house was nearly as good as the one the boyfriend was getting from outside.
Once upon a time, exiting my car in the college parking lot one morning to make my way towards class after collecting some things out of the back seat, I realized as I was shutting the locked doors that I hadn’t taken my keys off the front passenger seat yet, but alas, it was too late. This is the only time this has ever happened to me. The door shut and I stood there looking at the keys through the window, fully realizing my idiocy as I muttered “God damnit.” The thing was, I’d left the window ajar about 2-3 inches. I don’t even usually do that either, but clearly my guardian angel was present with me that morning because I was being uncharacteristically stupid. Problem was, my forearms were too girthy to fit through that narrow gap. My strapping manliness had clearly proven to be my downfall! I started to brainstorm a contraption to hook the keys and pull them out, but my first instinct was to start looking around for help, even though I wasn’t sure at first whether anyone’s arm could possibly be small enough, when suddenly, Skinny Asian Girl I’ve Never Met walks into my life. Or rather, I walk into hers. I say hello, introduce myself and explain that I need her arms. She laughs and agrees to help, and unbelievably, I watch as she sticks her arm in all the way in, practically up to her collar bone, leans in and grabs my keys off the seat. I thanked her profusely and we parted ways. In hindsight, I should’ve treated her to lunch. I’m stupid like that, though.
I learned something that day. Never underestimate the many and varied talents of a skinny Asian girl. But then, I suppose most men are probably already at least somewhat aware of this. 