Travel hell...

[Gregg]

I was in Florida and it was a simple 2 hour flight home....and then...

I left my phone on the dashboard of the truck on the way to the airport. Not a problem, I'm not one of those people who cannot breathe if their phone has been more than 24 inches away for more than 3 minutes. Just drop it in the mail, Bob, I'll get it by the end of the week, not anymore than a minor inconvenience.

I don't carry a wallet, least of all when traveling. I put my ID and usually a debit card in my pocket, along with a minimal amount of cash. If I'm actually driving a car I'll take keys, but when I'm not, like when I'm flying, I put my car fob thingy (my car doesn't have a key anymore) in my briefcase/laptop bag, along with my other credit cards, IDs, my phone (if I had not already left it behind) etc... The theme here is I want to zip through airports, which I've gotten pretty good at, without taking on and off and in and out things. TSA pre-check is what I consider one of the major benefits of being an Illuminati Big Shot (ok, anyone can get it for $85 if they can pass the background check, but you FEEL like a BSD (see Micheal Lewis) when you walk around the 2 hour line with more than a few people almost too stupid to do the shoes on/off thing which is half the reason the line is so long. Honestly, the big travel weekends have a high number of people who have never flown before and are amazed and what the TSA expects you to do to get on an airplane. As you can expect, a few of them try to "negotiate" a better deal on their passing through and aside from saving the 2 hours, I fucking love it when they notice me walking around their line, dropping my bag on the belt and walking through the scanner in about 3 minutes, and demand to know why "HE doesn't have to..." Its all I can do to not stick out my tongue at them, but I'm an elitist bastard and yesterday Karma reminded me not to tease the peasants.

On my way to the gate, I decided at the absolute last second I didn't want to even carry on my laptop, so I grabbed my Kindle and checked it with my other bag. I didn't take the battery out of the laptop, which was the beginning of my undoing. The TSA saw my laptop and DID take the battery out, and only zipped the bag about half closed. Somewhere between Tampa and Cincinnati, the bag spilled out few things....my car key thingy, the keys to my apartment, other stuff that isn't so hard to replace....and I discovered this somewhere between baggage claim and my car, which I couldn't get into.

Roadside service opened my car but the tech had never programmed a key without another valid one (which cannot be done except at a dealer, something I knew or should have known) so after a few hours the car was loaded on a flatbed and taken to a dealer. I could have gone and gotten another key, except I didn't have a key to get into my apartment, didn't know the phone number of the landlord, didn't know ANYONE's phone number, because, well, we all have cell phones, do you actually know anyone's phone number?

At 8:00 I gave up and checked into a hotel. I still don't have the energy to finish writing about it, I've just now gotten into my apartment.

I had planned to skip off to Gettysburg for a few days of sleeping in my own bed but losing the day here kind of ruined that.

But Happy New Year to everyone, hope you do better than me if you're traveling. In all fairness, I do travel a lot with perfect smoothness, it had to catch up to me someday.

[NYGman]

Not that it would help you, but I do keep a flat key for my car in my wallet, but if you lose that too, not much help. I guess it is another reason to get that keyless entry pad on the car.

At least now that you have had this experience, you should be all set for a while now, as you seemed to have used up your allotted quota of bad luck while traveling, so should have smooth sailing from now on.

At least it wasn't on New Years Day, when everyone is closed. Welcome Home(ish) and Happy New Year to you!

[Gregg]

A flat key will only open the door, you don't even use a key to start the car, you just have to have it inside the car. A new one cost me $189 (and that with a Ford Employee discount, and yes, I had to buy 2) Any Ford EXCEPT a Mustang is available with the keyless entry pad, and my other cars that had it I had an extra keyfob in the trunk (where it will not start the car) and after you get in the front you can open the back. Its just funny, because I've been a bit paranoid about getting locked out of my car since the last time it happened, in the 80's. I'll laugh about it someday, sort of like basic training, which I remember fondly now, but at the time wasn't nearly as attractive a memory.



Yes, I do hope I go another decade or so without such a mess.

[eric]

A flat key will only open the door, you don't even use a key to start the car, you just have to have it inside the car. A new one cost me $189 (and that with a Ford Employee discount, and yes, I had to buy 2) Any Ford EXCEPT a Mustang is available with the keyless entry pad, and my other cars that had it I had an extra keyfob in the trunk (where it will not start the car) and after you get in the front you can open the back. Its just funny, because I've been a bit paranoid about getting locked out of my car since the last time it happened, in the 80's. I'll laugh about it someday, sort of like basic training, which I remember fondly now, but at the time wasn't nearly as attractive a memory.

Now that we're getting back to normal seasonal weather this part of the hemisphere (minus 24 when I left work yesterday) the mechanics and tow companies are rubbing their hands with glee over their good fortune. Not only do they get the customers who call with dead batteries because of the cold weather, they get the hapless individuals with keyless entry who have managed to use a conventional key and a boost from a friend to start their vehicle, but discover their vehicle is stuck in "limp home mode" because the vehicle's body control computer suspects that it has been stolen. The procedure for resetting this is mentioned in an obscure paragraph in the driver's handbook which is on a DVD and every driver, shivering with frozen fingers when it's minus 40, is expected to have ready access to a means of reading said DVD.
BTW, my work truck dates from 2002 and uses "old technology", but at least I can figure out what to do when it won't start. Good enuff for work at a farm but not something as a daily driver, even though I have an affection for coffin bin tool boxes.