Each Christmas we engage in traditional holiday rituals while visiting family, such as setting off the car alarm on my brother's luxury SUV. He and his wife generously give us the use of this vehicle while we are in town, along with a note that says If this driver is stopped by law enforcement, I do not know her.
This car is a marvel of engineering. For instance, when the car is parked and the driver's side door is locked, it refuses to stay locked. Isn't that a great feature? This means that you, as a random stranger passing by, or any other large mammal with reasonable dexterity skills, can open the door. True, you will be greeted with a shrill alarm, but you will have plenty of time to steal something valuable, such as that note about law enforcement.
We have been unable to ascertain, despite numerous scientific trials, the secret to keeping this door locked. Our last night driving it, we were determined to get it to stay locked. We believed it had something to do with the proximity of the remote opener to the door, so after we locked the door the Hero instructed me to walk away from the car with the remote, and he would open the door.
"Farther," he said after I had walked a short distance.
I walked some more.
"Keep going."
I walked some more.
"Okay, you don't have to go that far," he called.
"This is in case the cops come to investigate. I'll have a head start on running away."
Taking a deep breath, he opened the car door, and...WHEE! WHEE! WHEE! WHEE!
This is when I began to regret that I had left so much distance between me and the car, as I had to run all that way back to stop the alarm so the Hero would avoid being arrested. Sensing that the patrons in the restaurant were getting slightly annoyed after about the fortieth trial, we finally admitted defeat.
Upon our return home we were happy to get back to our own car in the airport garage. Good old dependable Saturn, we said. Always works like it's supposed to.
And the battery promptly sputtered and died.
No comments:
Post a Comment