as a refresher, the nifty feature is this: as long as i have the key fob somewhere on my person, say in a pocket or my laptop bag or a sock or the waistband of my boxers, then heinz-harald recognizes me and unlocks automatically when i open the door. he also locks himself when i leave, if i wave my finger at him in a suggestive way, and will even start up when i push the red button. all this without needing the keys! and the best part is that the doors cannot be locked from the outside if the keys are inside, no matter how suggestively i wave my finger.
so anyway, i walked down to the parking garage, keylessly opened the trunk of my car, tossed my laptop bag in and closed the trunk again. kha-chunk. oops. that was a kha-chinking sound eerily reminiscent of the sound that heinz-harald makes when he locks himself. i tried to open the trunk again. locked. i tried the driver's door, and then the passenger's door. locked and locked. i checked my pockets but found only my building pass and my cellphone. then i remembered reading somewhere that the trunk has a different kind of proximity sensor than does the cabin, and it's not capable of determining whether the key fob is inside or outside of the car. yes, quite.
i used my cellphone to call the help centre, and asked them to send someone to let me back into my car. i was mildly alarmed to discover that heinz-harald is a new breed of automobile that is apparently quite difficult to get into. security features and all, you see. i was told that if the service technician could not gain entry then my car would have to be towed to the dealership for a couple of days where a white-suited german engineer would presumably coax and cajole heinz-harald into unlocking himself. the customer service representative told me not to worry, because if my car did have to go to the dealership then they would furnish me with a replacement car to use in the interim. as generous an offer as this was, it did me no good since my apartment keys were also locked in the trunk. in that case, replied the representative, i should just stay at a nearby hotel and they would reimburse me for all of my accommodations and dry-cleaning charges. i asked if he thought the hotel would let me pay with an iou, since my wallet was, well, locked in the trunk of my highly-secure car.
(incidentally, what kind of company offers you a replacement vehicle and a free hotel room when you are dumb enough to lock your keys in the car? what kind of message are we sending people about the matter of personal responsibility? if i ran the world people who did stupid things would be punished for them, not rewarded. if i ran the world i would have made myself push my car to the dealership... and that's just one of the many good reasons why i'm glad i don't run the world)eventually i returned to my office, where i shamefacedly admitted to my colleagues that the cool and nifty feature of which i'd recently been bragging had now caused me to lock my keys in the trunk. yes, thank you, i am familiar with karma. we are very well-acquainted. fortunately they were kind and only briefly succumbed to tears of laughter. the colleague with whom i'd had the conversation that started this whole sordid affair suggested a way for me to solve the problem. the secret, he said, was to recognize that cars are not very bright. quite dumb, in fact, nifty features notwithstanding. so what i needed to do, he confided, was to make my car think that i had the keys in my pocket, even though they were really in the trunk. if i was confident, and added the element of surprise, he was sure that i could confuse the car into opening for me. but i had to Believe. it suddenly became clear to me why it was that i liked this particular colleague so much.
i strode back across the parking lot to the area where heinz-harald was parked and securely locked, and veered my course to take me a little off to the side of his left bumper. i changed to a casual saunter, my hands in my pockets, casually whistling and looking for all the world as though i was just out for a casual walk and not at all about to break into a car. as i approached heinz-harald i confidently cupped my hand in my pocket, as though i was cradling the absentee key fob. like a flash i reached out and grabbed the trunk handle, and i believed...
i took the keys hurriedly from my bag, vowing never again to put my laptop in the trunk. as soon as i sat down i called the help centre to cancel my service request.
some people will suggest that karma was the reason i got locked out of my car. i bragged about my nifty feature, and then that same nifty feature locked me out. maybe it was karma that caused my problem, but it was good olde-fashioned guile and deceit that solved it. how's that for a life lesson?
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