I have to laugh about this because I’m too exhausted to do anything else. So the plan was to go to Tupelo to pick up the new mattress for the daybed, the new dishwasher, and a bunch of personal CD players for work (we need 84 for a study we’re doing–it’s gonna take us a while to accumulate that many). The latter made it a work trip, so I was able to take a fleet vehicle–big ass Ford Excursion. I felt like I was driving an 18 wheeler. So I get up, pick up the first batch of CD players (Fred’s was having a special on them for $9.99), swung by the used bookstore (picked up Allison Brennan’s The Hunt, Brenda Novak’s Dead Giveaway, Beverly Barton’s Close Enough to Kill and The Murder Game), then went to pick up my mom for the rest of the shopping trip. First, Home Depot didn’t have the dishwasher that the website said they did. So then I headed over to Sam’s and picked up the matress. Then hit the second location of Fred’s. That took a while (the whole tax-exempt thing is a lot less common up there). Then I dropped mom off and drove to the gas station up the road. Pumped my gas. Turned around.
The door was locked.
Yes, that’s right, I, who own a 2007 Nissan Altima in which it is IMPOSSIBLE to lock your keys in, locked the keys in the damned Excursion–in the ignition. With the gas card sitting on the console. My purse and cell phone in the front seat. A mattress in the back and 24 CD players in the backseat. Oh, and the cab light was on.
:headwindow:
So I call my mother to come get me, go back to her house and call my in laws (not home), then my husband to look up the phone number for my boss (because of course that was in my phone in the Excursion), whom I called to look up the number for our fleet manager whom I hoped to call for the code to get in the door (naturally it HAD buttons to punch to get in, but who knows what the number was). Well I coulnd’t find a number for the fleet manager and had resigned myself to calling a locksmith. But my mother, who isn’t afraid to ask anybody anything (she’s totally an You never know if you don’t ask kind of woman), called the police department, who had her call 911, who had her call Fire Station One.
Well the fine gentlemen of FS1 showed up with the big red truck. Three of them got out, striding around with that really sexy, purposeful walk that men in emergency services tend to have. Two of them carried these flat pieces of metal that they told me are called Slim Jims (didn’t look a thing like beef jerky to me). They weren’t sure it would work on such a new vehicle but they gave it a shot, one on each side. It actualy got really funny because they assumed this stance that, for some reason, totally reminded me of the calf roping competition at a rodeo. It was as if they were having a competition to see who could get it open fastest. As it turns out, passenger side won by about 2 seconds. I am so glad I live in Mississippi where people will still do that kind of thing without expecting compensation. So I will totally be baking a large batch of cookies and sending a care package to FS1 as a thank you.
I swear, this is the last time I take a fleet vehicle anywhere. Over the course of the last year and a half I’ve had 1 break down on me, 1 get me a speeding ticket (by dint of not having cruise control), and locked my keys in this one. But at least two of them gave me great fodder for future books.