Sunday, April 3, 2011

And then what do you do?

We've all been in the embarrassing spots. Today was my turn.

Suzy drove Rosie 80 miles today to get to the SKP Chapter 21 rally. We're kind of on the advance team, because Suzy is Treasurer of the Chapter; she has to collect the money and make the payments, so we came in a day early. At 4:00 the rally hosts were holding happy hour at their place. It was so windy, the 5 couples of us sat inside Don Damkaer's beautiful motorhome to share the good times. We brought pistachios; somebody else had lime-flavored tortilla chips to share.

Before we left our place, Suzy had asked if I had my motorhome  keys, because she didn't want to carry her purse, and of course, I had my motorhome keys! I have three sets of keys in my pockets, and I had placed the car's driving keys up in the spare coffee cup, so I could carry the motorhome keys more comfortably in my jeans pocket. There's only so much room in a jeans pocket, and of course, being a man, I needed as much room as I could get in the pocket area of my jeans!!!

We had a delightful time at happy hour, but it was time to leave, so we did. We got back to Rosie, and I pulled out of my crowded jeans pocket ... the car and trailer keys! I didn't have the motorhome keys. They were the ones resting comfortably inside, in the spare coffee cup on the little shelf above the locked motorhome door!

Oy!

Then I noticed that the passenger window was not closed; it was open, all except for the screen. It took me only a minute or two to pry open the screen and slide it to where there would be enough room for me to turn sideways and slither through with only slight damage to the screen and the window, not to mention the amount of damage to my personal pride and the skin on my stomach --- IF I had a ladder. Of course, I could drag the picnic table over to the side of the motorhome; I'm resourceful, if not always prepared.

At that moment, the fellow from the motorhome next door (his name is Ed, I think) showed up, toting a small ladder, and said, "I'm small, do you want me to crawl in and open your door?"  ("Shhhhhiiii.....t!")  

What can you say? What DO you say? If you don't say "Yes, please" you're a fool, and I don't want to appear to be anybody's fool, so I said, "Yes, please!"

Ed climbed up his ladder, slithered easily through the open window (without damage to our screen, our window, his pride or his stomach) opened our door and let us into our own motorhome. By this time, Ed's wife had hung her head out the window of their motorhome, announcing that she had thought maybe we were locked out. Duh!

Then Ed made the big announcement: "I have a hide-a-key so I can always get in." Of course! A hide-a-key! We have one of those! It's in the opening in the wall behind the refrigerator! I immediately opened that little compartment (all you need is a coin to turn the little knobbies, and I had a coin). There it was, in all it's glory -- our hide-a-key thingy, with the motorhome keys safely inside, protected by a combination that was about 7 years old, as was the corroded unit inside the oxidized and therefore useless protective plastic bag. All I had to do was remember the combination to see if  the combination on the hide-a-key still worked so that I could then recover the key to the door, the key that I no longer needed because Ed had so cleverly crawled in and opened the door for us.

Did I remember the combination? Of course not, that's what wives are for. Suzy knew the combination (but I won't tell you what it is in case you ever want to break into our motorhome without having to climb through the open window.)

I punched in the combination. It worked! I tumbled the keys into my eager palm, only to find out that they were the keys that USED to work before the door's locks were changed because the old locks had worn out!

Now we have a set of outdated keys residing in a corroded hide-a-key with a combination I may not remember, in case I ever get locked out of my motorhome and slim Ed isn't next door to us with a wife who notices that we appear to be locked out of our motorhome because I have to have some extra room in my jeans pocket!

So tell us your story, as we have told OUR story about this day in ... Our Life on Wheels!

14 comments:

  1. Good story! We have a hidden key, but one day when I was out of town craig didn't remember where it was so he broke a window to get in!

    Men! They all need wives to do their remembering for them!

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  2. now that was funny after the fact..thank goodness for your 'skinny neighbour'!!

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  3. Bwaa hahahahaha!! Sorry for your predicament but it sure makes a good story. I don't have anything that can top that! Thanks for the laugh.

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  4. At least you got the Motor-home opened. All is well that ends well.

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  5. Love that story! One of the ways I impressed Don when we first started thinking about traveling together was to lock myself out of my motorhome! A friend, a very small friend, was able to snake herself partially through an unlocked window enough to reach the lock on the door and move it to the open position so we could open it from outside. Not as dramatic as your story, but one I'll never forget!

    Glad to know the advance staff is on site. See you tomorrow.

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  6. I'm sure it wasn't funny while it was happening, but it makes for a funny story afterwards!

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  7. The key to the story seems to be in keying the correct key point to the proper memory channels. That of course is key to an easy entry into the Motor Home & keeeeping you safe from grievous injuries upon crawling through windows. Say, do you suppose a nice big slice of Key Lime Pie might have fit with this story & kept you keyed up awhile longer....Kee Hee:))

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  8. Such a great story, thanks for making us both laugh while choking down our morning coffee. This made us remember that some years ago we locked ourselves out of our travel trailer. In our case, we sent our young son through a window to unlock the door.

    John
    relaxedrush.blogspot.com

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  9. Before we had an RV,we were in the Canadian Rockies, traveling in our blue truck(1980's) We got out to take a photo of a Moose in a lake...Walked back up to the truck..keys were locked inside. There was only one other person within 100 miles, and he JUST HAPPENED to have a coat hangar in his van...McGuyver, pocket knife and coat hangar = opening slide window and reaching keys with his Gorilla arms..What is it with men and keys??? LOL!!!!

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  10. I'm sure glad I'm not the only one who has that kind of problem. I have a basket of old keys at home and I have no idea what any of them are for, but I'm afraid to throw them away, because as soon as I do, I'll find a need for it.

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  11. My story isn't an RV story. We were having some concrete added to our driveway so that we could more easily move our motorhome in and out of where we store it. I went out our garage door and it locked behind me. Of course, I didn't have my cell phone with me, or my keys. No way to get back into the house, and no way to get out to the street or sidewalk because of the wet concrete. LUCKILY, the concrete guys were still there and I was able to have one of them call a locksmith who was able to get to our back yard from a neighbor's yard and unlock the back door for me. All this took some time, of course. And also LUCKILY for me, I was fully dressed at the time, just not dressed for cold weather!

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  12. Our RV was parked on my brother's ranch when he woke us at 3a.m. to watch some meteors flash through the sky. At 3 a.m. we were dressed in pj's with a coat over it. You guessed it. We were locked out when we decided to return to bed. My brother, a highway patrolman, was unable to open our RV door with his tools. Terry ended up taking the door off it's hinges to get inside.

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  13. That is quite a story and funny to boot. But I have one question, if the keys were in the motorhome, how did you lock the door when you departed? Ours requires either the key or the remote control to lock from the out side.

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