Tue, October 7, 2003

Today, Californians go to the polls to decide whether to get rid of the governor they re-elected just last year. (Isn't it cute the way sometimes I say "today" meaning the day I write the article and sometimes I say "today" meaning the day it gets posted? Just when you think I'm gonna zig, I zag!) Some of the most recent polls indicate an erosion of support for the recall, but I'm finished trying to make predictions about this election.

I was going to write about the recall today ("Today?" you ask. "Which 'today' is it this time?" Mwa ha ha!) and offer some musings about the electoral process and the danger that the current silliness invites. I even got as far as the above paragraph at the office this afternoon. (Not bad, eh?) However, this evening's events adjusted the topic somewhat.

***

If I ever needed proof that I have a future as a sitcom writer, any doubts have certainly been laid to rest by tonight's episode. If there's any truth to the old axiom "write what you know," I should be on easy street after these last few hours.

As of 7:00 pm, the plan was to drive home from the office, stopping at the grocery store (redeem those coupons now, before the cashiers go on strike later in the week!), have a nice dinner with a little TiVo, scribble out some semi-coherent wisecracks, then fall into bed with visions of "I Voted" stickers dancing in my head. As of 7:03 pm, all that had changed. Since I had a few extra things to carry down to my car, I tucked my keys into an accessible pocket in the outside of my shoulder bag where I could easily reach them to unlock the trunk by remote. Having pulled this maneuver a few times before, I knew that I must cautiously avoid forgetting to pull the keys back out of this pocket before shutting the bag in the trunk of my car. I specifically reminded myself twice, on the way down the stairs and on the way across the parking lot. But, between the time I placed everything in the trunk and the time I shut the lid, I dropped something, which allowed me just enough time to forget what was exceptional about tonight's arrangement – so the keys stayed in the bag, in the trunk. Because the trunk had been unlocked by remote, the car remained "locked," and returned to that state (alarm on, all access prohibited) as soon as I slammed the lid. Well! It was time for me to make some new plans.

(Believe it or not, I actually tried the thing where you pull on the trunk lid just to see if it will randomly spring open. This is akin to the thing where you wiggle some arbitrary item under the hood when the car won't start, or the thing where you blow on the Tetris cartridge.)

And to think of how derisively I've laughed at the people in those OnStar commercials. Payback, she is a bitch.

So, imagine little me: riches to rags in less than an instant. Suddenly I was all alone with nothing but a grocery list and a Discover card in my pocket. My mind was already racing. ("Hey, you!" I said to it. "Where the hell were you 36 milliseconds ago when you were supposed to be reminding me about the keys?!" "Heh-heh," came the reply, "remember that chick in trig class?")

There are security guards at the desk in my office, so I was able to get back in and get to a computer and a phone. Volvos come with a roadside assistance package, so on the assumption that said package includes a guy with a Volvo universal trunk remote, I looked up their number online and gave them a call. Turns out, the package actually includes Volvo calling some local locksmiths and paying for everything except the part where he makes a key. (Which means they're covering the cost of? The drive over?) I was in a position to shop around, so I called AAA. They wanted my membership number. Um, hello? Worldly belongings locked in trunk of car? Apparently I forgot to read the part of the AAA Membership Guide where you suture your member card to the inside of your thigh for just such an occasion. Fortunately, after fifteen minutes of repeating the same answers, my account was located. (AAA is a pretty big organization. Am I supposed to believe that I'm the first person in their history who is on his parents' membership and doesn't live in their state?) Their service included the same phone calls, quite possibly to the same locksmiths. Within a few minutes, both had called me back to say that no available locksmiths in the area had any way to get into my car. (AAA actually called back once just to dispute the fact that Volvo makes an S60. "They've heard of S70 and S80, but they say there is no S60." Ah, yes. I've been driving around for two years in a figment of my bloody imagination! The "A" in AAA does stand for "Automobile," does it not? It's not just "Aaa," as in, "Aaa, we never heard of that," right? The S70 was discontinued in 2000, and the S60 came around in 2001, which works out about right since I told them I had a 2001 S60. Just now, I had to go to three used car sites to even find one that mentioned the S70!)

Anyway, the suggestions from Volvo and AAA were the same: they could tow the car to the dealership, and the dealership could open the trunk. I asked Volvo if that meant the dealership was open, or if there was a night staff at the service department or something. It sounded farfetched to me, but Volvo was suggesting it and it was their dealership. "Oh my, no." They meant my car and I could get a ride to the dealership and the car could be unlocked in the morning when they opened. Yeah, does that include a hotel shuttle and a meal voucher, or what? Leave it to me to be dumb enough to get locked out of my car during the 16 hours a day that nobody cared to do anything about it. Damn, those OnStar people were cackling by this point!

The mind was still racing. "I'm a relatively smart guy," I kept thinking. "How did I not have backups and backups-for-backups in place for a situation like this?" I couldn't be sure what would happen next. Would I sleep in my office and wait for the tow truck in the morning while my co-workers filed in? Would I sleep under my car at the curb outside the dealership? Would I max out my Discover card on a cab ride to the airport and a plane ticket to Florida and just pretend I never left home in the first place?

Meanwhile, the Plan was continuing to take shape. From the moment the trunk latched, pieces of this brilliant scheme had been gently falling together like CSI clues, but I kept telling myself, "No, that's absurd. This is why we have AAA. To avoid the need for vigilante roadside assistance." But little by little I was beginning to see that the Plan was my only chance, so I may as well see if it actually fit together. Here, honestly, is the Plan:

1. I had spare car keys in my apartment, and my only apartment keys were in my car.

2. Calling the landlord to let me into the apartment wasn't really an option because I didn't have his home number (it's in my cell phone – in my trunk), and I remember him saying something when I signed the lease about "by the way, don't lock yourself out, because I'm not coming to the rescue."

3. The maintenance workers who have been working on my apartment building for the past two weeks recently put the screens back on the windows, doing a terrible job and leaving one screen really loose – I'd been fighting unsuccessfully with it for a few days and it still wouldn't latch closed properly.

4. To avoid having to move heavy equipment to and from the job site, these workers had been leaving their ladders on the roof of the garage in back.

Armed with these tidbits, I figured I could get a ride to the apartment, climb onto the roof of the garage, pull the ladder down, use it to climb up to one of my second story windows, pull the loose screen aside, push the window open, climb into my apartment, get my car keys, come downstairs, return the ladder, get a ride back to my car, and resume my life as I'd left it around 7:00.

See? A genius!

So, I called Andy, interrupted him in the middle of some very important business, and asked for a favor. Fortunately, Andy is a champion, and he was up for a little adventure, so he agreed to my crazy scenario (I was beginning to make Charles McKinley look like an expert tactician) and he was on his way. I spent twenty minutes playing the new online computer game I'm addicted to – got to level 11 for the first time! – and then he arrived and we were off.

It always tickles me how I can be fey and fastidious almost every waking second but then when I have one of these wild ideas, I'll just wander into an industrial thresher or dive into a cesspool without thinking. Moments later, I found myself scrambling on top of a trash can, straddling the collapsing fence behind it, and pulling myself up onto the roof of our rickety garage. (No fate but what we make! Hee!) Andy and I fussed with the ladder comedically, doing our best impression of the guy with the skis over his shoulder in a National Lampoon movie and looking for someone to knock down. After navigating through some near misses with his car windshield, some power lines, and I think there were some wheelchair-bound basketball players in there, we lined the ladder up with my window, all the while auditioning for Giggliest Cat Burglars Ever. Up I went. Under the screen, through the window, "Hey, TiVo, howareya," to the kitchen drawer – ah... spare keys! My pants had undergone some scuffing between the garage sprawl and the ladder climb, so (fey! fastidious!) I changed into cargo pants and washed my hands before heading out the door, leaving my apartment unlocked but letting the outside door latch behind me.

Down to the car, return the ladder to a safe spot, help Andy begin to navigate the tiny driveway back out. "Okay," you're saying. "You're a massive idiot and you pulled off a really stupid plot to break into your own apartment. But this sitcom comparison is stretching it a bit." Whoa-ho, gentle reader! The plot, she does a-thicken!

See, this is the part where I pat down my coat and pants and say "Hey, where are those car keys?"

Cut to: car keys. On the table. By the door.

In the apartment.

In the fuss of taking my pants off, I had set the car keys down someplace I felt sure I'd pass them on the way out. And, boy did I pass them. On the way out! "Hi, keys. Good to see you. I'm on my way out! Take care, now."

So, the apartment door being unlocked, it was easier to get a neighbor to buzz me into the building than retrieve the ladder and go through all of that again (besides, how many changes of pants did I have in there??), so I headed for the call box while Andy backed out. I was really beginning to feel as though we were channeling Team Shower Fresh from the original Amazing Race. The first neighbor I tried calling (the one I have the friendliest relationship with; he'll be a dear and buzz me in) hung up on me twice. Our callbox is a bit rusty and tends to sound more like static than like a dumb kid trying to get buzzed in. In light of all the recent craziness surrounding the Do Not Call list, I can't say I blame Elliott. Next I tried to reach the downstairs neighbor who I felt certain had heard all of the ladder antics, but I ended up reaching the neighbor with whom I have the least friendly relationship. (Not that it's my fault; he's just always eyeing me.) So, he buzzed me in and gave me a suspicious glare from behind his little peephole, and we were on our way!

The rest of the story is pretty boring, suffice it to say I must have patted my pockets down to double-check that I had the car keys at least fifty times on our way back to the office. Andy was a true hero (Suck on it, 9/11 firefighters! What have you done for me lately?) and we had a chance to discuss Proposition 53 (Pork barrel! Vote no!) in the car. Then I got in my car, listened to my Tenacious D while making faces at the School of Rock billboards all the way home (He he! It's you on the billboard and it's you in the car! He he!), and even used the late hour and my "ordeal" to justify trading Ralphs for Wendy's.

(I noticed that Wendy's asked if I wanted my value meal "small, medium, or large?" Recently they joined McDonald's in offering all three sizes, but they were stealthily asking "Do you want that medium or large?" which gave the distinct impression it was an either/or question, when in fact "No" was actually a valid answer. They tricked me with it once, because I figured "medium" must have been the un-Super Sized option. But now, they've been strongarmed into honesty. How can we recall a governor who's clearly responsible for such tangible progress?)

I would hope that tomorrow would be less hectic, but we'll probably be recalling the first governor in over eighty years and replacing him with a nipple-twisting, vagina-requesting, Hitler-loving failed restauranteur-slash-action hero. Well, at least we know one thing: The Daily Show will be excellent.

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