Friday, February 6, 2009

Damsel in Distress

My oldest daughter called me at work the other day to tell me that she had “somehow” locked both sets of her keys in the trunk of her car. She had set in her backpack, and then decided she needed to do something else in the trunk, and had laid her coat down—with her keys on top. The spares were in her backpack. Then she closed the trunk.

When I got home from work, I began the process of trying to break into her car. I took one look at the locking mechanism, and realized that I could not use the “slim jim” method, since her locks are electronic. We decided to slip a wire between the door and the frame, and try to loop the handle, thinking that pulling the handle from the inside would unlock the door. Number three daughter was standing there watching us—for an hour—then finally told us that only the front doors will open like that when the doors are all locked.

“Great! You couldn’t tell us that an hour ago.”
“I just thought you were trying to open the door from the inside, I didn’t know it was locked.”
“If it was unlocked we could open it from outside!”

So now we start on the front door. Fifteen minutes later I had the car unlocked. Problem solved, right? Nope. We thought we if we could get in the car, we could push the trunk release, and open it right up. Not in this car. If the security has been set (and it had), you cannot unlock the doors, start the car, or open the trunk without the keys. The keys are still in the trunk.

My next move was to try and take out the seats to access the trunk from inside. The kids told me that the seats fold down to make the trunk bigger. I began to look for the release mechanism to fold down the seat. Her car manual finally tells me that the release bolts are inside the trunk! However, the seats are divided, to allow two separate parts of the seat to fold down depending on the cargo to be hauled. Between the seat there is a thin gap. Very thin. Luckily, number two and number three daughters have very skinny arms. We were able to run a wire through the gap, hook the backpack, pull it up next to the seat, and with many contortions, get the keys out of the backpack and unlock the trunk-- four hours later.

Now for the topper. Two hours after that, number one daughter calls again. She had closed the keys in the trunk again. Luckily, this time, she had not armed the security, or locked the car, so she was able to pop the trunk from inside the car. I told he that if this was going to become a habit, she needed to invest in a Hide-a-key.

Take care, and keep smilin’, that’s all you can do sometimes. Stick

3 comments:

Twist said...

We just bought Samantha a car. First thing I did was make me a key and her a spare to put in her purse. In a jam though, the best thing to pick a trunk lock with is a key to another car of the same make...

Dee Ice Hole said...

Every car is manufactured with a tool to break into it if you lock yourself out---it is the antennae---all you have to do is pull the door away from the body at top of the door and jab the antennae down on the door lock. Sometimes you need to use a wedge to hold the door out but any piece (or pieces) of wood will do.

This lesson was taught to me in fire camp by one of the kids in a prison crew who we had to use to break into a vehicle because we weren't smart enough to do it. When we asked the guard if he had anyone that could do it he laughed and said we'll have you in there in less than a minute---the car was unlocked in less than 30 seconds. This DUDE was good at what he used to do (and probably will do again).

Amber said...

or she needs to keep the spare key at home! sounds like a pain in the rear - glad you got em out though!