Tag: Cars

This is what happens when I get flustered…

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It was the weekend of Easter, and I’d told my mom that it’d be no problem to be home for the festivities around noon  on Saturday(I know Easter is on Sunday, but my family starts celebrating on Saturday. That post is coming later. First things first). Of course, true to form on Saturday morning that time frame changed to around 2 pm. In my adulthood I have somehow evolved into a person that is always late. Since it doesn’t matter how much time I give myself to prepare for being on time, I generally just wake-up at the very last moment and rush around frantically like a maniac. I’ve learned that waking-up early doesn’t help. I’ll fall into a time warp and still turn up late. So this tactic seems to work for me.

It does, however, leave me a bit flustered. As does pumping gas in the middle of a wind/rain storm. I got out of the habit of pumping gas when I lived in Oregon, and it was a law that a gas station attendant had to pump your gas. I thought this was pretty ridiculous at first, but then I realized what a wonderful thing it was. So flustered Lauren pumping gas in the rain lead to me to do something I have never done before. I had the gas pump running, and without turning it off pulled the gas pump out of the gas tank. I made it rain. Gas-that is. Everywhere. Then I spent the car ride alternating between worrying that I was going to spontaneously combust because I was covered in gas, to worrying that we created an environmental hazard in the gas station parking lot. (We might have spilled some oil as well.) And were we supposed to report it?? It was an accident! How are we supposed to know the answers to these questions??

If you know the answer to this, please do tell.

Good Times with Dash

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So I’ve blogged about Dash before, and my love for him. And up until recently we’ve always had a great relationship. I don’t know where we went wrong, but one day Dash started going all Stephen King on me. He automatically locks me in when I turn on the car, which normally makes me feel safe and secure in the knowledge that some rando person is not going to hop in the car with me. (Side note-this happened to me when I was a kid. And it was weird.) So yeah, I like being locked in my car when I’m driving around.

Not so much when I’m trying to exit my car. I pulled into my driveway the other day, hit the unlock, and Dash proceeded to unlock and then lock immediately. After a few rounds of this, I was not impressed. As the locks are automatic, I was unable to manually unlock the car. So in a nutshell I was locked inside of my car sitting in my driveway. Real funny, Dash. It didn’t take long for me to hit a slight patch of panic. Will I ever leave the car again? Will I suffocate? What will happen to me??!

I decided that since Dash had no intentions of letting me out of the car, I’d just have to outsmart him. Ah-ha. I looked around for my options to escape, and my gaze landed on the sunroof. Duh. I’d just climb out of the sunroof. Not strange at all. I decided to call my mom for moral support. Let’s keep in mind that I’m in a bit of a claustrophobic state. I reviewed my plan with her, and she nicely pointed out that I could roll my driver’s side window down, and use my key to unlock the car from the outside. Errrr right. I’d just have to climb out of the sunroof some other time.

So I took her advice, and was out in a jiffy. Lauren-1 Dash-0. But Dash wasn’t done with me yet. A few days later I woke-up to the sound of a car alarm. I was not happy that some idiot set their car alarm off first thing in the morning. But wait…as my foggy morning brain cleared the noise sounded pretty close. Yep. Real close. Right beneath my bedroom window. I looked out and Dash was putting on quite a show of alarm. Awesome. I stomped angrily downstairs, and turned him off.

I should have known it was only the beginning. Later that morning Dash struck again. When I tried to exit and go to work, I found myself once again on lockdown and trapped inside. This time he added the wonderful strains of the car alarm to keep me company. I tried disarming the alarm and unlocking the doors. Nothing. Basically, I looked like an idiot hanging out of my car window trying to unlock the car with the alarm blaring. This time not even Mom’s technique worked. Of course, as soon as I handed over the keys to a helpful stranger Dash unlocked like a charm–leaving me looking like a complete moron. Luckily, it’s par for the course, and I was running late for work so I just went with it.

It became a game of Russian Roulette every time I got in the car. Would Dash trap me inside or not? What fun. I particularly enjoyed the time I got to climb out of my car window in the Target parking lot. By that point, I was over fighting with Dash and really needed some Target time– so yeah I just hopped out of the car window. In broad daylight. I tried to make it look as casual as possible. No big deal, I do this all the time. What? You haven’t heard? No one uses doors anymore. 

And this could have gone on forever, but all good things must come to an end. Using my great friend Google, I learned that to outsmart Dash, I’d have to disable his car alarm. Well, not me exactly. I had some help (thanks to Garett). Dash is a pretty fierce competitor, and I’m not known for my handiness. And I’m pretty sure that’s the last we’ll hear from Dash for quite awhile…