My Car is Smarter than Me

I can do unbelievably stupid things in the U.S. too. (Though is Jersey in the U.S.)? I missed my first alarm this morning which should have been my first clue of how the day would go. I’ve never turned off an alarm in my sleep in my life, but some how I did today.

So today I got to work just as a downpour hit. A torrential downpour. I gathered my stuff up: checked I had my key, put my dress shoes in a plastic bag and got my umbrella ready. But then suddenly I heard a dripping noise and turned to see water flooding into the passenger seat from the sunroof. So I shoved the key in the ignition and hit the button to close it. I couldn’t see anything move, but the flood stopped so it must have been open just a hairline crack. So I was patting on myself that I had sat in the car an extra second and prevented a major flood.

So then I re-gathered my stuff ready to make a mad dash to the building. I opened the door and hit the lock key on the door and then sprinted to the building. The parking lot was a flood and my pants were completely soaked by the time I got in. I went to my desk to sit down and then did my habitual check to make sure I had everything and realized I was missing my car keys. I couldn’t believe it! I pride myself on how I spastically check for my keys and never locked myself out of my dorm during college and here somehow I’d done it. I was too wet to go outside so I described my keys to the security guard in case I had dropped them and phoned my aunt to bring the spare key. I planned to check at lunch if by chance the door was not locked, but I remember distinctly hitting the lock so I didn’t have hope.

4 hours later a mass email went out to the office that a certain car in the parking lot was still running. Running! Pretty soon I was running too. I told my friend where I was going and I ran out to the car. And there it was, running but not locked. I had left my car  unlocked and running for FOUR hours.  Fortuitously the car was smart enough not to let me lock it with the key running in it. Yet it probably meant to also tell me not to leave the car running for four hours. You may think I should have heard noticed the radio on when I got out. But the other car I’ve been driving leaves the radio on even when the key is pulled out and only goes off when the door opens and when the door opened it was thundering so I didn’t hear it. Of course the whole office knew since there was the mass email. My manager asked me if I’d had my coffee… not enough sir, not enough.