What's the story behind a time when you got locked out?
I've locked myself out of my car on more than one occasion, but this is quite possibly the worst instance of this happening. It was the day after Christmas 2004, I was 17, and I was supposed to be at work at 8am. I was excited - it was going to be a good day. My boyfriend from Tulsa, Brandon, was coming to pick me up after work, and I was going to go back with him to Oklahoma for a week. I got in my mom's car (a crappy Mercury Topaz, '93 I believe) and went on my way, already a little bit late getting out of the house. Everything was okay, I was determined to get there on time, I was driving with a purpose. I got on the highway, and about this time the car started to slow down on me. At this point I realized that I was unable to go over 50 mph and people were passing me (the speed limit is 70). I had no idea what was wrong, as I know next to nothing about cars except for how to make one drive, but I do know when it's time to pull over so I took this opportunity to do just that. Unfortunately, that's about all I could do because at this time I didn't have a cell phone, and even if I DID have a phone, my mom had spent the night at the hospital with my grandpa so her phone was off and I had no idea how to contact her. I must have sat there for at least an hour. It was cold outside, it had been snowing, and now my car wouldn't even start - there was a nice heavy smoke coming out of the hood, too. I cried, I rested my head on the steering wheel, I listened to the radio. I took off my jacket - I think being so nervous made me warm. All I could do was leave my hazard lights on and wait for someone to stop, hoping it was someone I could trust. Finally someone did stop, and I decided to be smart and just roll down the window when he came up to talk to me. I had also inadvertently locked the doors out of fear that he'd try to do something bad.
"I passed you about 45 minutes ago, and on my way back I saw you were still sitting there. You need a phone?" I nodded and reached up to take his cell. I used it to call the only number I knew - I worked at Kmart, and I sniffled my way through telling the person at the service desk what was going on. She transferred me to security and I told the story again to the next person on the phone. All this time the guy who stopped to help had my hood open trying to check out what was wrong. I was more concerned with begging Ann with security to get ahold of my boss and let her know why I wasn't there yet (I worked in the shoe department, which at the time was run by Meldisco, so the Kmart managers didn't care if I showed up or not). She offered to come pick me up, so I tried to explain to her where I was. She said she'd be there as soon as possible, I thanked her, and we hung up. The guy yelled from behind the hood, "You're out of oil!" That makes sense. I'm too stupid to realize that my car's overheating, so I run it out of oil. Nice. By this time I figure I can trust the guy, so I get out, shut the door, and hand him the phone. I thank him very much for his help, tell him someone with my work will be on their way to pick me up, and he starts to get back in his car. I walk back to the door, pull the handle, nothing happens. Oh no.. no no no. The window's still rolled down from when I took the phone from him, but it's not enough to fit my entire arm down in there - believe me, I tried. My purse, my coat, my keys - all locked inside the car, which is turned on and the hazard lights are still flashing. Luckily, the guy turns around and sees me trying to fumble with the door handle.
"Oh, no.. locked out. How'd that happen?" I shook my head, unable to say anything. At this point I'd exploded into tears again. I was so embarrassed - first I run the car out of oil, now I can't even get into the car. He wasn't going to leave me outside with no phone in the snow, though, so he asked me to get in his truck. Without looking at him, I nodded and climbed into the passenger's seat. He tried to talk to me to calm me down and get me to stop crying. It was his birthday and he was in town visiting family for the holidays. He showed me a picture of them - it looked like a nice bunch of people. I apologized to him for keeping him from his family, and that made me cry even more. He tried extra hard to assure me that it was okay - he'd gone out to buy groceries, and saw me sitting there on his way out. On his way back in a while later, he noticed I was still sitting there, so he got off the nearest exit and got back on the highway headed in my direction to see if I needed any help. We talked for probably another hour or so and I started wondering where Ann was. He asked if I wanted to call her back, so I called Kmart again and they said she wasn't there - she was out looking for me. They gave me her cell phone number, so I called her. She was basically driving around in circles near the wrong exit. Eventually I was able to accurately tell her where I was and about fifteen minutes later another car pulled up and she got out. I thanked the man profusely, told him happy birthday, and got in the car with Ann. We headed back to Kmart where I worked for the last two hours of my shift, trying to hold it together the entire time, looking forward to seeing Brandon that afternoon. Someone finally got ahold of my mom to let her know I needed a ride home, and she showed up at around 2:30 to pick me up (I got off at 2). We drove back to the car so she could unlock it and I could get my stuff out of it (my purse and everything was still in there!) and of course by this time the battery had died.
When we got closer to the car, I noticed there was something sitting on the hood. It was a shopping bag that had two bottles of oil, and on the receipt he'd written me a note. I wish I still had it, but that's one thing that's gotten lost in all the times I've moved since then - the only thing I remember was that it was very encouraging and that he'd said I was "a sweet spirit". I'd already spent the entire day crying, why not one more time? Unfortunately, the car actually had a leak and couldn't be saved by simply refilling the oil. The car was dead and it was time to get a new one - we did! Wait until you hear the story about me driving a standard! ;) However, since the man lived out of town, I obviously never got to see him again and never got to thank him for being so patient and helpful while he was on his vacation (on his birthday, no less). In the off chance that he sees this, I hope he knows how grateful I am for his help.
