Learn From My Fail; Car Keys

I've been driving since I was 16 years old, and in that time period I've locked my keys inside my car exactly once; just two days ago. On my way home from Georgia. While I was still in another state.

It was stupid, really. I was driving on I-85, heading north from Spartanburg, and thinking about a math problem (I'm a nerd). I really wanted to stop and put gas in the car prior to leaving the state so that I could fill up on cheap gas (30 cents cheaper than in N.C.!), and so that I could scribble out the math problem on a note pad real quick and get the answer (It was a combination problem in which I needed to estimate the mileage driven in the Civic before the increased fuel efficiency zeroed out the repairs cost. I came up with the formula in my head but there were too many numbers flying around to get an accurate answer, although I did come up with a rough estimate of 10,500 miles mentally. The accurate answer was 11, 352 miles.) so that it would stop bothering me. I put my car keys in the passenger seat while I wrote down the actual numbers and solved the problem, and then jumped out of the car while locking the door to put gas in the car. It wasn't until after I had finished topping of the tank that I realized I had locked myself out (I wanted to get the mileage from my odometer to keep track of my fuel efficiency, 38.4 mpg on that particular tank, which included city driving in Athens).

The ironic thing is that I had mentioned to my better half that I really needed to stash a copy of the Civic key on my person, probably in my wallet, to better guard against doing just that. Irony is hard to laugh at, however, when you're locked out of your car a couple hundred miles from home, with no one friendly within a two hour drive radius to come and help you out.

Fortunately, I got hold of a local business called "Pop A Lock" (Stupid name, great service), that came out and for a token fee got me back in the Civic and on my way.

Since I'll never put up a picture of myself, here's Soren Bowie locked out of his car instead, since he understands the issue.

Mission Debrief: What Went Wrong, What Went Right, and Thoughts on Future Prevention
First and foremost, violation of my personal rules, #9, which is "Keep a Spare". I do this a lot, I have backup ways to start fires, to get water into my system, back up knives, back up magazines.. I even had backup motor oil in the trunk of the car. What I didn't have on me was a backup key for the car, which is inexcusable because, frankly, a single key is lightweight and easy to carry at a secondary position on your person. I have corrected this by putting the car key that was originally on my key ring (it was somewhat bent, but still serviceable) in my wallet, and putting the original Civic key on my key ring. I do sometimes leave my wallet in my car (about 1:100 car rides), but the odds of leaving both my keys and my wallet in the car are astronomical.

Second; I have an illogical conditioned reflex to lock the car while getting out of it. It's a simple procedure of lifting the handle to open the door, and while that handle is being actuated I can reach out with a few fingers and easily lock the door. However, this does not work in the favor or insuring that I have my keys on my person prior to closing the locked door. My proposal to eliminate this issue is to simply recondition my locking reflex into one where I lock the car after closing the car door using the key. If I cannot accomplish this, it would be because I have left my key inside the car. Once this reflex has been so ingrained that it is automatic, I will have added another layer of defense onto the statistical odds of being completely locked out of my car.

I am happy to report that possessing a smart phone has paid off once again, as it allowed me to search for local locksmith companies on the fly, once locked out of my car, so that I could get home in a timely manner. This prevented my better half from having to drive four hours from our home into South Carolina in order to bail me out with one of the spare keys for the Civic. It also gave me access to my kindle library to read during the relatively short duration between securing the services of a locksmith and their actual arrival time. I was also able to get a hold of my better half with the phone, and even though I ultimately did not need her to drive down to South Carolina, it was comforting to know that I at least had a solid, non-destructive plan B. ( I actually had about a dozen plans lined up on how to deal with the situation, but they get more undesirable as they increase in letter count away from Plan A).