My First Car
was a B-Reg Ford Sierra. Oh yeah! Actually it was good fun - 1.6 and rear-wheel drive. Great!

Anyway, obviously there was no central locking on it and I had discovered that you could lock the driver's door by pushing down the lock and holding the door handle up as you closed the door. Great! No need for lazy and slightly forgetfull me to remember to lock the door with a key.

So over several weeks I had got into a bit of a habit. Get out, push lock, hold handle, close door, walk away. No messing around with keys. I was happy and all was well.

Until one afternoon when I was driving away from college. I noticed someone had stuck a flyer under my wipers. I reasoned that I should probably stop and retrieve this item before it blew away. I stopped the car, got out with the engine still running, closed the door and walked around the front to get the flyer.

It was as I was walking back around the car that I got . . . that certain feeling. You know the one I mean. The sudden tightness in the chest and the cold sweats that are the body's way of saying "you've just screwed up BIG TIME!"

Naturally, I had locked the door when I got out. The habit had been so deeply ingrained by now that I hadn't even realised I was doing it. So there I was, standing at the side of the road with a locked car with its engine running. And as this was pre-mobile phone I had to walk the half-mile back to college to phone for the breakdown people, all the time wondering if my car would be there when I got back.

But that's not the end of this tale. Oh no. You see ladies and gents, this wasn't the first time I had done this. This was the second. Yep, the second time I had locked my car with the keys on the inside and with the engine running.

My parents must have been so proud.
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Sat 22 Dec 2007, 16:23, 1 reply)

I did something similar...
...also on an old Sierra. It was a frosty morning, and I had to go to work, so I popped out of the house to warm the car up. Started it up, then got out to scrape the windows, out of habit locking the door behind me. Whoops.

So my dad comes along: "Ah, I know how to get in" he says, producing a coathanger. A few moments later, rather than an unlocked door, I now had a driver's side window on the floor/seat/road in about five thousand small pieces. Helpful.
(moogal has eggs, Fri 28 Dec 2007, 4:56, closed)