The Problem With Keys – IOTW Report

The Problem With Keys

car keys

Several days ago as I left the sale barn in Navasota to walk out to my pickup and was reaching into my jeans pocket from my truck keys…..got that sick feeling when I didn’t find them there. I desperately gave myself a personal TSA pat down – other jeans pockets, shirt pocket – not there. Turned around real fast and trotted back into the sale barn. I did a quick search in the seats where I had been sitting – nothing. I asked everybody if they had seen my keys – nope. Then it hit me – I must have left them in the truck. Frantically, I headed for the parking lot outside the sale barn..

My wife, Verna Faye has scolded me a thousand times for leaving the keys in the ignition. My theory is the ignition is the best place not to lose them. Her theory is that the pickup will be stolen if I do that. As I burst through the doors of the sale barn and out into the parking lot,, I came to a terrifying conclusion. Her theory was right. The parking lot was empty – no pickup.

 

I immediately call the highway patrol. I gave them my location, confessed that I had left my keys in the truck, and that it had been stolen. Then I made the most difficult call of all.

“Honey,” I stammered. I always call her honey in times like these. “I left my keys in the truck, and it has been stolen.”

There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard Verna Faye’s voice.

“Cooter,” she barked, “I dropped you off at the sale barn on my way to the grocery store!”

Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, “Well, would you come and get me?”

Verna Faye retorted, “I will, as soon as I convince these *&%$&#$ highway patrolmen I have not stolen your *^%$^&%$$ truck!”

*****

h/t Doc.

19 Comments on The Problem With Keys

  1. hehe, that’s funny. My wife locks her keys in the car all the time. Every time she does, the key lays on the driver’s seat because women tend to fill their arms with all kinds of bags and things before exiting the car. No matter how many times I tell her to leave it in the ignition until it’s time to get out, it never sinks in. Why? Because the car will go DING DING DING when the door is open with the key left behind in the ignition, and the driver’s door won’t lock when open with key in ignition. We’ve burned thru over $1500 in locksmith fees over the past 8 years, easily.

  2. I once put my keys down at the grocery store checkout (had my store card on the keychain) and the guy in front of me picked them up and left the store. Fortunately he realized it and returned them as I was panicking looking all over. Lesson learned…

  3. I lost mine briefly the other day. I set it down in walmart on the fabric counter while I juggled my phone looking for a better deal. Unfortunately that could have been about a $500 mistake because the stupid jeep only has one key and one fob. Jeep wants $200+ just to program a new chip key and fob, something I could do myself if I had 2 keys/fobs to begin with.

    Why they do things like that is beyond me. I tried to haggle them down to 1hr of labor but they insist on billing me for 2hrs. The worst part is I know they’ll hit with a scan tool and be done in 5 minutes!

  4. This is SO simple: ONLY TAKE YOUR KEYS OUT OF YOUR POCKET FOR THE TASK AT HAND, be it opening the front door or putting in the cars ignition. Once that task is done PUT THEM RIGHT BACK IN YOUR POCKET and never take them out.
    I’m utterly amazed at friends or relatives who walk into my house and IMMEDIATELY PUT THEIR KEYCHAIN ON MY TABLE OR COUNTER. (THIS GOES FOR WALMART FABRIC COUNTERS, TOO!)
    STOP DOING THAT!!!
    I know I’m shouting. This issue drives me crazy.

  5. I buy F-150 Lariat SCREW pickups. Keyless entry. Most of the time I don’t want my keys in my pocket and just throw them under the seat when I go in some place. The only downside is that I have to open the driver’s door and then hit the lock button and then walk around to the passenger side to put the kids into their car seats in the back. If I had the key w/me I could just hit the lock button and would not have to walk around.

  6. Really really appreciate this joke! I desperately needed a laugh today due to the overwhelming urge to chuck it all because of the current administration’s unrelenting efforts to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

  7. Oh, and if someone were to break out a window and try to steal the truck they would not get far. The alarm would be going off while they were up to their belly button fishing around under the seat for the key and then they would have to unlock the door before they could start the truck using the key.

  8. “Key People” come in 2 flavors.
    The Misers: Keys never leave the pants
    pocket unless turning a lock/ ignition.
    Slap pants pocket to make sure b4 moving.
    The Pollinator: Keys are hand carried to
    any destination and dropped on table/bar.
    Usually are left there until missed in sweating
    panic mode.

  9. I must keep my truck cab locked whenever I part from it. I keep deadly things in it. Besides theft – liability. Cover my a**.

    I am often in and out several times at a stop and have to use the key every time. I’ve developed the habit of keeping my keys on me. Setting them down is almost always a mistake.

    I also leave my truck running when I run my pumps, for the power. The keys can be removed from the ignition while the truck runs. So the cab is definitely locked every time I exit.

    I also keep a key hidden in a magnetic case outside. Just in case I mess up.

    Slapping my pocket to confirm my keys are in it right before I shut the locked door is routine. There are a LOT of keys on my key ring. There’s no mistaking them for something else.

    Routine can also be the weak spot.

    When my truck was hit about 1 1/2 years ago, I had a loaner to work out of.

    My keys were in my pocket, confirmed by a quick slap, when I shut the locked door of the loaner, a 2014 Silverado.

    Then I remembered the loaner’s keys were not on my key ring and I had left them in the ignition while I was preparing paperwork in the parking lot. Sigh. That cost me $40 from a guy that happened to do that for a living and lived right in front of where I was parked. Another instance I think God watches out for me.

    It may have cost me less if it wasn’t a Silverado. When I asked him how much, he looked the truck over and looked me up and down before giving me a price. Great time to not be in my old beater. But I was thankful. Time was short and the charge was half of when I did it at a hospital parking lot years before.

    A side note: The last time my house was burgled was after my keys were stolen off my kitchen table by a 12 y.o.

    Keep your keys on you. Make good habits with them. Sh*t happens.

  10. I’ve been keeping a spare door key in my wallet for years. Saved my ass a couple of times.
    I’ve gone outside the house without my keys and had my big dog jump on the door and lock the deadbolt a couple times. Sometimes he even turns the porch light off at night. Bastard. So I’ve stashed a key for that situation too.

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