Christine, Part 2

OK, well "tomorrow" is a nebulous term at our house.

When last I posted, Dan was locked out of his van, now aptly called Christine. The windows were open, but the doors were locked. I thought he was crazy, but when I went out there to see what he was talking about, the locks were obviously fighting against me unlocking them. It was spooky. The back door which hadn't unlocked with the remote for years, had started unlocking with it earlier in the evening, but now was securely locked. The keys hadn't worked in any but two of the locks for years as well, and if the locks wouldn't open by hand, they sure weren't going to open with the key - which likely would've snapped off in our hand.

So we did what all intelligent people do in this situation. We went to bed.

The next morning, he was still stuck. I went out with him and suggested unhooking the battery. I figured it might hit some kind of reset button and make them go back to factory settings or something. Well, it worked. Kind of. As soon as the battery cables were unhooked, we were able to unlock the doors. We even did a little high five. That lasted as long as it took to hook the battery up again, at which time those devilish locks slammed shut all over again, and once again refused to open.

The end result? Dan unhooked the battery, unlocked the door and opened it, then hooked the battery up again, got in the car, closed the (locked) door, and drove to his destination. When he got there, he had to disembark by climbing out the window. Now, this works fine for a physically fit painter, but that afternoon, he took off in my car and dropped Seth and his buddy at the movies. It didn't take long to realize that I was going to have to pick them up by using the same process -- two fifteen year old boys diving in through the front window of the van in front of the movie theatre. OK, well, we can get away with that, but no way was I gonna climb out that window once we got home. And the steam coming out of the vents was unnerving, not to mention probably very bad for my asthma.

I called Thomas and he picked the boys up.

It wasn't long after this that Christine went to auto heaven, also known as Haughville, where his Guatemalan painting buddy will probably perform some sort of miracle and get her running again. I just hope he doesn't lock her.