An interesting night indeed
It started out fairly normal. Got a call from my brother-in-law to go see a movie. Right as I was hanging up the phone someone from work was trying to give away two tickets to the Illinois/Northwestern game.
Since free is a good price I called my brother-in-law to see if he wanted to do that instead. He agreed so we headed to the U of I (I’d still really like to see Sherlock Holmes sometime soon though).
I don’t get home until 6 normally and last night I had to make an extra stop at the pet store, so I didn’t get home until 6:15. Game time was 8 so I knew we would be cutting it close. I picked Rob up at about 6:50 and off we went.
We made really good time and made it to the Assembly hall right at game time. We parked and rushed to get in. The game ended up being a very good game. I am not an Illinois fan or a Northwestern fan, so it was nice to see a good, close game when I didn’t really care about the outcome. The game went into OT.
With about two minutes left in OT I got my stuff together, put on my coat and checked to see which pocket my keys were in. They weren’t in any of my pockets! I kept checking and re-checking and they were nowhere to be found.
At this point I’m thinking, “Great, I locked my keys in the van. I hope my roadside assistance covers this stupidity.” After the game as we headed back to the van I called the insurance company to get a claim started. As we got closer to the van the Country Companies person asked if I wanted to start the claim.
We were about 20 feet from the van when I noticed the lights in the dash were on. So I figured I left the lights on too, but I looked at the front of the van and the lights were not on. Then we looked at the back of the car and noticed exhaust coming from the pipes.
I thought, “No way! I left the car running the whole time!?!?!?”
Sure enough. The car was running for the 2-1/2 hours we were in the game. By this time I’m thinking that I not only locked the keys in the car but left it running. I got up to the driver’s side door and reached for the handle in one of those moments of truth when you know something is true but hoping it’s not.
To my (and Rob’s) surprise, the door was unlocked!
So I left the van running with the doors unlocked the whole time. What’s funny though is that the gas needle hadn’t moved from where it was when we parked and apparently the cooling system works well because the temp was the same.
So we jumped in the car and headed home safe and sound, with one of those memories that I’m sure will never be forgotten.
