It all started this morning with a bad hair day. I had a big meeting this morning at work that I intended to be early to as I was co-chairing the meeting. Because I spent too long trying to make my hair presentable I was running late, which meant I would only be a few minutes early (if the traffic was nice to me) or I'd be just on time to my meeting. As I was rushing to work in my car, Roxy (my car) started making an unusual noise. Said unusual noise ended up being a flat tyre. This meant I wasn't going to make it to my important work meeting on time, let alone early. As I was only a mile and a half away from work, I ditched Roxy on the side of the road and high-tailed it to my meeting. I arrived a mere 15 minutes late.
After the meeting an extremely kind colleague of mine not only gave me a lift back to Roxy, but he also put the spare tyre on for me. What a hero!
Adam putting on the spare
I made a few phone calls from work and managed to find a tyre place that had a tyre that would fit Roxy in stock. The tyres Roxy uses are not the most common size and thus hard to find and expensive. After work I headed to the tyre place. My tyres have a special nut that requires a special bolt thingy to get off (some kind of security feature so my tyres are harder to steal). I could not find it when I got to tyre plae. I emptied out my boot and my hand bag and glove box and and and. I called the colelague who changed the tyre, he couldn't find it in his car or jacket. 30 minutes minutes after the search began I found the bit hiding on the side of the parcel shelf. Excelent. Mister tyre man began fixing tyre. I tres to restore my car to the state it was in before I tore it apart looking for the bolt.
Because I wasn't in the safest of areas, I locked the car while I reassembled the boot. As I needed both hands to tidy the boot, I put my keys on the parcel shelf (you see where this is going, don't you?). After boot was tidy, I closed the boot. About a milisecond after the boot closed, I realised that my keys were in the boot. My boot was locked. Seriously?! A flat tyre and locked keys in the car ON THE SAME DAY?!!
The man at the tyre place tried to get in my car.
He made a valant effort and even managed to flick the door unlocked and open the handle from the inside. This is when he asked me if I deadbolted the car. "Deadbolt the car, how do you do that?" I asked. "Click the lock button twice", said he. "Oh. Quite possibly", groaned I just before I dialed the car recorvery service.
30 minutes after they said they'd be there and 2 hours after I arrived at the tyre place and 30 minutes after the tyre place closed, the recovery man turned up.
15 minutes later after a few attempts, the recovery guy pulled my keys out of a very securely locked Roxy. I drove home starving (I missed breakfast and lunch, my only nurishment for the day had been a yoghurt), frusterated and sad that I was now running too late and had to cancel my evening plans (I was due to go into north London and pick up a hand bag that I have been waiting 3 weeks to pick up!). **Sigh**
Silver lining for the day:
*it wasn't raining today while I walked to work or when I changed the tyre or while I waited for the recovery man.
*the tyre man waited behind to make sure I got in my car safely.
*my flat tyre happened close enough to work that i could walk.
*the flat happened today and not tomorrow (tomorrow I'm driving 4 hours north for a wedding).
*the recovery man was able to get my keys out of my locked car (my spare key was also in my car so if he wasn't successful I would have had to break (and pay for a replacement) window).
*I learned how to deadbolt my car door.
*my car is very secure from potential thiefs
