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alfvaenLuke turned three on Monday. After some debate over having the party earlier, on the weekend, we had it on the day.
Our house is on a fairly narrow lot; one of the previous owners extended the driveway up beside the house, and put a wooden carport overtop. But there's still remnants of the old gate that used to be at the front of the house, which makes the carport very narrow to get into if there's two vehicles parked there. I didn't want to make my 75-year-old grandmother, who's getting less spry every year, squeeze through there, so when I came home from work, I made extra special care to park the Jeep as far to the left as I could, to allow the maximum clearance on the right(which is the side the door's on). I then opened the passenger door, put my keys in the pocket of my jacket(which I wasn't wearing, because it was very hot), power-locked the doors, and squeezed out the driver-side door, closing it behind me.
I quickly realized that I had blundered. While I could fit between the Jeep and wall of our neighbour's house, there were only a few inches' clearance between the Jeep and the posts holding the carport up. And I was trapped between them. The Jeep's driver door was, as I have said, locked. I was, in a word, stuck. I could conceivably have dragged myself over the hood of the Jeep, or even the roof, or in extremis crawled underneath, but that would only have been necessary if I were alone. Simon had come to the door, as he often does, and I yelled at him to get Mommy, because I was stuck. She came out, crawled through the open passenger door, and unlocked the driver door; I got back into the Jeep and followed her out, power-locking the doors again on my way out. I could've moved the Jeep then; I could've tried to leave clearance on the other side instead, or I could've backed it out into the driveway, but it was so hot inside I wanted it in the shade. So I left it.
The party was a fair success, even though my dad didn't make it(his car, which had been giving him trouble, apparently died the death), and Nicole's parents had just gotten back into town from a tour of Yellowstone and didn't come.
The next morning, my plan was to unlock the passenger door of the Jeep, crawl over the driver's side, start it, and drive it away. But I reckoned without the wiliness of my Jeep's burglar alarm.
I normally keep the alarm disarmed, because it gets lonely or paranoid or something, and often decides to go off for no reason(that I can tell)after about ten minutes. I first noticed this when I would come back to the parkade in the afternoon and it would honk three times as I unlocked the door. Apparently this means that the alarm was triggered sometimes since it was set. One day I came home from work, parked in the carport, and went down to the basement, and ten minutes later heard it honking up a storm outside. I went out and disarmed it, and made a habit of disarming it every time I locked it since then.
But, since disarming it involved unlocking the driver's side door with the key(and then relocking it), I of course hadn't had a chance to do that while pinned against the side of the carport with no keys. And on some level I might have known that. However, I am never quite sure what will trigger the burglar alarm even when it's working properly. Once I was at the gas station, and after filling the tank, I power-locked the doors(which arms the alarm)before starting the car; apparently this meant I was a burglar, having obviously broken a window and entered the Jeep without unlocking the driver door. I was so embarrassed, and had to get out of the Jeep and unlock the driver door before it would stop.
Apparently another common approach of burglars is to unlock the passenger-side door, because as soon as I did that, it started honking. And of course disarming it would mean unlocking the driver-side door, which I'd rendered inaccessible the night before. (We also have a remote door-unlocker, but it doesn't work too well, and I barely even considered it.) Simon came to the door, very upset and scared at the noise, but I managed to persuade him, barefoot and in his pajamas, to take my keys, squeeze through to the driver door, and unlock it. Which I still think was an incredibly brave thing to do. After that I was able to climb in the passenger door and drive away, promising myself to never, ever do that again. Maybe I'll rip out the last remnants of that stupid gate at the front of the carport, because I swear it's not holding anything up.
Our house is on a fairly narrow lot; one of the previous owners extended the driveway up beside the house, and put a wooden carport overtop. But there's still remnants of the old gate that used to be at the front of the house, which makes the carport very narrow to get into if there's two vehicles parked there. I didn't want to make my 75-year-old grandmother, who's getting less spry every year, squeeze through there, so when I came home from work, I made extra special care to park the Jeep as far to the left as I could, to allow the maximum clearance on the right(which is the side the door's on). I then opened the passenger door, put my keys in the pocket of my jacket(which I wasn't wearing, because it was very hot), power-locked the doors, and squeezed out the driver-side door, closing it behind me.
I quickly realized that I had blundered. While I could fit between the Jeep and wall of our neighbour's house, there were only a few inches' clearance between the Jeep and the posts holding the carport up. And I was trapped between them. The Jeep's driver door was, as I have said, locked. I was, in a word, stuck. I could conceivably have dragged myself over the hood of the Jeep, or even the roof, or in extremis crawled underneath, but that would only have been necessary if I were alone. Simon had come to the door, as he often does, and I yelled at him to get Mommy, because I was stuck. She came out, crawled through the open passenger door, and unlocked the driver door; I got back into the Jeep and followed her out, power-locking the doors again on my way out. I could've moved the Jeep then; I could've tried to leave clearance on the other side instead, or I could've backed it out into the driveway, but it was so hot inside I wanted it in the shade. So I left it.
The party was a fair success, even though my dad didn't make it(his car, which had been giving him trouble, apparently died the death), and Nicole's parents had just gotten back into town from a tour of Yellowstone and didn't come.
The next morning, my plan was to unlock the passenger door of the Jeep, crawl over the driver's side, start it, and drive it away. But I reckoned without the wiliness of my Jeep's burglar alarm.
I normally keep the alarm disarmed, because it gets lonely or paranoid or something, and often decides to go off for no reason(that I can tell)after about ten minutes. I first noticed this when I would come back to the parkade in the afternoon and it would honk three times as I unlocked the door. Apparently this means that the alarm was triggered sometimes since it was set. One day I came home from work, parked in the carport, and went down to the basement, and ten minutes later heard it honking up a storm outside. I went out and disarmed it, and made a habit of disarming it every time I locked it since then.
But, since disarming it involved unlocking the driver's side door with the key(and then relocking it), I of course hadn't had a chance to do that while pinned against the side of the carport with no keys. And on some level I might have known that. However, I am never quite sure what will trigger the burglar alarm even when it's working properly. Once I was at the gas station, and after filling the tank, I power-locked the doors(which arms the alarm)before starting the car; apparently this meant I was a burglar, having obviously broken a window and entered the Jeep without unlocking the driver door. I was so embarrassed, and had to get out of the Jeep and unlock the driver door before it would stop.
Apparently another common approach of burglars is to unlock the passenger-side door, because as soon as I did that, it started honking. And of course disarming it would mean unlocking the driver-side door, which I'd rendered inaccessible the night before. (We also have a remote door-unlocker, but it doesn't work too well, and I barely even considered it.) Simon came to the door, very upset and scared at the noise, but I managed to persuade him, barefoot and in his pajamas, to take my keys, squeeze through to the driver door, and unlock it. Which I still think was an incredibly brave thing to do. After that I was able to climb in the passenger door and drive away, promising myself to never, ever do that again. Maybe I'll rip out the last remnants of that stupid gate at the front of the carport, because I swear it's not holding anything up.
