They were bringing a 20-year car out of winter storage and the battery had died, so he was using a mid-size SUV to tow the car with her behind the wheel.
Well, no power steering + aging muscles and joints = difficulty making the car turn sharply enough to make corners.
As I drove down the street I take to get home from work one night, their towing difficulties were causing a slight (okay, total) roadblock. There was no way they were going to make the turn through the intersection without making it a 3-point turn.
Which I assumed meant they needed some help backing the car up so they could complete the remaining 2 points of their turn. So...
1) I pull over and hopped out to see if they needed a quick push backward.
2) The husband says his wife was just having trouble getting the wheel turned enough without the power steering available.
3) I, thinking "Yay! I'm helping old people!" jump into the driver's seat and give the wheel a good crank or two until the car is straightened out in the road. I prepare to stop at any moment and hop back into my own car.
4) The old man keeps driving down the road.
5) I start to panic because--thinking I would only be needed for about 30 seconds total--I not only left my car unlocked, but running. With my purse inside.
6) I watch anxiously in the rearview mirror, just knowing that some 14-year old kid is going to come steal my car.
7) The old man stops, gets out of his car, and explains how we wants to maneuver getting the car into their carport. He is not in fact taking me to the nearest mechanic and leaving his wife to fend for herself as I feared, but is simply towing the deadmobile to their house which is only another few doors down the road.
8) I can't relax until I am back to my car and can confirm that, yes, it is exactly where I left it and yes, I am able to get back in it without calling a locksmith.
True story.
2 comments:
That is a pretty funny true story.
So I once came out to my car after work which I had driven at lunch and had left running. All afternoon. Locked. Yep, the keys were in the car (which is why it was still running!)... You know what I did?
I pushed the car window down.
The driver's side window. It was a hand-crank job (no power windows) and for some inexplicable reason I was able to push the window down. I'm still not exactly sure where that particular bit of inspiration came from (Hmmmm. My keys are locked in my car with the car running for the past 5 hours. I think I'll push the window down with my bare hands! Yeah! That'll work!). But hey! It did...
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