As of 12:02 tonight, if you lock your keys in your car, I can totally get them out for you…provided that your keys are:

1. In your Drivers or Passengers seat
2. You have a spade that I can bend handy
3. I am allowed to destroy the paint around your door, and possibly bend it beyond repair.

And I can offer this service for the low, low price of: Gas to get to your location + 1 Taco Bell value meal. Pretty sweet deal, huh?

How did I come upon this new skill, you may ask. Well, I’ll tell you.

It all started the night of July 28th, 2008. My wife had spent the evening out with her friends, and I was at home sorting our Picasa pictures. Around 10, she knocks on the door, so I get up to let her in. The first words out of her mouth are, “Hi, Honey. I love you sooo much!” “I just did the dumbest thing ever.” I thought, “Oh, Great. She has either: a) Ran into my car; b) Ran over some old guy; or c) Ran over some old guy while trying not to run into my car.” Now my wife isn’t a particularly bad driver. She is actually pretty good, if a little slow (little slow means obeying the posted Speed Limit).

“I locked my keys in the car.”

Oh, well, that’s not so bad, is it. I mean, she’s home, so I can just take my keys out there and click the unlock button, and we’ll retrieve her keys. The clicker thing even works from our couch, so I really don’t even have to get up. Except my keys have been missing for about 5 weeks now. So I grumble about blacksmiths and keys and stuff to myself for awhile. Then I get to thinking (uh oh!). I’m a smart guy, I can figure this out. It’s nothing but a big, Real Life(tm) puzzle. So I do the first thing I always do when met with a complex puzzle, To The Internet!

From this point on, i just stood there with my finger up my butt.

Actually, I found a YouTube video on how to do it. I didn’t have a slim jim handy, so i had to do method b, which is to jam some crap between your car and your door and try to poke the unlock button. So I found some crap that I thought might work, 2 screwdrivers, a bent spade, a paintbrush, and some paint stirrers. By the way, paint stirrers don’t work very well, they break, and have splinters which stab you, and hurt.

So I proceed to jam a screwdriver in the car, and shortly thereafter find out that I may as well be jabbing my car with sandpaper, because that’s what it looks like happened to the door. I get it open enough to get the spade in (for leverage) and I start prying, and prying, and then i get another screwdriver in there, and keep working those three things back and forth, until I got enough room for the paintbrush. With the paintbrush in, i was able to freely maneuver the undone hanger inside the car. By freely, I of course mean, “with great difficulty”. Good times.

So I’m wiggling the hanger wildly around the inside of the van, trying to lasso the door handle, or accidently jab the unlock button on the door. As I keep attempting these feats of impossibility, I have a sudden flash of inspiration. There, on the drivers seat, is the remote. The remote that can open car doors. The key to solving this puzzle (he-he, get it, ‘key!’, man I’m clever).

So for about 5 minutes, I poke and poke at this stupid remote, trying to hit the unlock button, and avoid the dreaded ‘PANIC’ button, but to no avail. I finally come inside for a minute to rest, and regain focus. Also to draft my wife to hold the flashlight. So, armed with a flash-light-holder-person and a renewed spirit, I march back to battle against the evil Caravan. I waste no time jamming the hanger back into the side of the beast, and as I hear it moan in agony (which sounds like coat hanger scraping on sheet metal) I carry on with the fight.

After another 10 or 15 minutes, i decide this isn’t working as well as planned. My wife, begging to hurry up, so we could go back inside, suggests we find some other instrument to poke into the van. She finds 2 hooks that are used to hold an over-the-door mirror on the door. They were flat enough to fit into the crack, but I didn’t know if they would be long enough, but we had to try, they were our only hope.

So duct taping the 2 hooks together, we worked our stick into the crack, and it wasn’t long enough to reach the seat. So we decided to combine the two efforts, duct taping the hanger to the hooks. Then we went back at it, armed with our frankenstick, and jammed further into the van, and about a minute later…SUCCESS! The van unlocked, and we were able to retrieve the keys.

So, do you need your keys out of your locked car, and a funny story to go along with it? Just shoot me an email or a DM on twitter, and I’ll be able to deliver. Even if I can’t pry your door open, I’ll be happy to at least bust your window out

Have you ever locked your keys in your car? How did you get them out? Let me know your funny stories about your automobile related misfortunes.