January 19, 2000

Locked out: Life's cruel twist of fate

By GARRETT LEIVA
Herald editor
       Rare as they are, life has those moments when you can actually hear the rushing sound of fate before it cuffs you with a backhand slap to the head. It also sounds just like a car door slamming when the keys are in the ignition.
      Locking yourself out of your own vehicle is one of life's crueler moments. Where the planets align in a synapse of realization not unlike the look on Gregory Peck's face when he finds the mark of the beast and not dandruff on Damion's scalp.
      Personally, I can't help smiling.
      Now I could kick the tires or sob uncontrollably on the hood, but I find bitter irony - well, kind of funny. Of course staring into the window of an idling Jeep to find the heat on full-blast, a dog asleep on the passenger seat, the gas gauge reading a tenth of a gallon and the keys in the ignition - all while you shiver in 20 degree temperatures- makes you incline to crack a wry smile rather than double over from belly laugh induced abdominal cramps.
      Like many previous such catastrophes, my latest locked out episode was self-inflicted. A moment of absentmindedness followed by the perfect clarity of your own stupidity. Even the dog stared at me in disbelief before closing her eyes and falling back asleep.
      Now when it comes to locking yourself out of the car and the keys in it, most would-be drivers typically go through five stages of grieving over their misfortune.
      First there is the denial that you could have pulled such a bone-headed move. You circle the vehicle lifting up each door handle, expecting full well one will swing open. Even when you lift up on the driver's side handle for the twentieth time, a part of you is still stunned that the door won't budge.
      After a few 'doe-in-the-headlight' minutes, however, your blank stare becomes filled with broken blood vessel rage. You rant, you rave, you string together obscenities with tenses that make no sense grammatically. You might even create matching dents in the rear quarter panels.
      Then it hits you - guilt. Especially if you're from the Midwest and you ask someone to pass the salt by first offering an apology. You should have gone to the hardware store and had a spare key made. You should have placed that magnetic key box, with the spare key from the hardware store, under the bumper like your father told you. Then you begin bargaining: 'Please God, just this once let me levitate the car keys through the driver's side window.'
      After your request goes unanswered- standing there in the 24-hour grocery store parking lot- you experience utter depression. For all those lost moments in life, when you watched yourself in NFL slow motion instant replay shut one door of opportunity after another. It is during this epiphany that you fully accept your fate - and the guy from the towing service you called a half-hour ago shows up to jimmy the lock open.
      Now being a man who would rather examine which way the moss grows on a tree before stopping at a gas station to ask for directions, I get hung up on the whole denial thing. Which is why I spent part of last Thursday afternoon in a school parking lot trying to break into my own 1993 Jeep Cherokee with a broken coat hanger. Deep inside the recesses of my cranium, the voice of reason was shouted down by that little voice telling me 'MacGyver' could have built a door key out of this bent wire.
      Luckily, a woman in a nearby minivan took pity on my machismo ineptness and let me use her cellular phone. Fifteen minutes later, with a decimal point of gas and a snoring dog inside the Jeep, my wife pulled up with a smile on her face.
      After a half-hour out in the cold, with a simple turn of a key and in a few seconds I was back in the driver's seat. The dog stood up and stretched before returning to her interrupted nap.
      As I turned down the heater, I swear I still hear the sound of a rushing backhand coming from behind. Although it is probably nothing, I duck my head - just in case.
      Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail at gleiva(at)gtherald.com.