{"id":11882,"date":"2016-09-15T01:55:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T05:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=11882"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:38","slug":"my-locky-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/my-locky-day\/","title":{"rendered":"This Was My Locky Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today I took Mom to a doctor\u2019s appointment in the Big City.\u00a0 This building has 2 handicapped parking spaces just outside the main door\u00a0to the parking lot \u2013 which is nice.\u00a0 But they are not sized like handicapped spots: they\u2019re just regular parking places with the blue and white wheelchair emblem painted on.\u00a0 The one next to the curb was occupied, the other one was available.\u00a0 I nosed in but stopped where I could get Mom\u2019s door open and her wheelchair in place to get her out, then I\u2019d pull in, shut it off,\u00a0and lock it up.<\/div>\n
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As she was lifting herself from car to wheelchair the window slid down (power windows) and she mentioned it in case I\u2019m blind or something (hey, it happens).\u00a0 I raised the window\u00a0and closed the door.<\/div>\n
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\"car<\/a>I rolled her up onto the patio outside the entryway and went to pull the car the rest of the way into the parking slot — but I found the doors locked.\u00a0 And the keys are inside.\u00a0 And the engine is running.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sort of blocking the driveway.\u00a0 Oh Bother!<\/div>\n

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There was another couple standing there, about my age, and he takes an interest in my plight, offering a couple of useless suggestions (but he\u2019s trying to be helpful, you know?).\u00a0 So I said, \u201cI guess no one will be able to steal it, I\u2019m going to get Mom thought the doors so she can make her appointment.\u201d\u00a0 She\u2019s quite adept at getting around in her chair; she does it all the time.\u00a0 Big heavy doors can be a problem, though.\u00a0 So I got her to the elevator lobby and went back out.<\/div>\n
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I made the call to AAA, gave the gal (who said her name was Carmen) all the information and she said a local automotive lock and key shop would be responding within 45 minutes.\u00a0 She did tell them that the engine is running and I\u2019m blocking a driveway, so hopefully they will slide me up their priority list.\u00a0 There will be no charge, this is fully covered under our membership.\u00a0 Yay Triple A!<\/div>\n
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No more than 5 minutes<\/strong> later a small white car with AAA Emergency Services<\/em> on the side pulled in and found a parking space.\u00a0 A young fella got out, used an inflatable bladder to open a gap between window seal and glass, then poked a long, oddly shaped, orange, steel rod through the window gap he created and fished around until he hit the unlock button and was able to open the door.\u00a0 By this time a small crowd had gathered to watch (including the fellow from before and his wife).\u00a0 A cheer went up.<\/div>\n
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I asked the young man how he got here so fast.\u00a0 He said he was actually on his way home when the call went out and he was just a couple of blocks from here, so he ducked in to take the call.<\/div>\n
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I parked the car (making sure I had my keys).\u00a0 I noticed that the fella I\u2019d been chatting with was sitting in the car parked next to my drivers side.\u00a0 I waved and said \u201cThanks for keeping me company.\u201d\u00a0 He waved and smiled.<\/div>\n
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I didn\u2019t have long to wait before Mom came trundling out to the check-out desk to do what they do and we left.<\/div>\n
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As we were getting into the elevator a elderly couple stepped in as well.\u00a0 I\u2019m 60 years old and naturally I do not consider that to be elderly, so these two had to be 110 at least.\u00a0 Both quite small (even shorter than my 5\u20194\u201d), deeply tanned and charmingly wrinkled.\u00a0 She was in a yellow dress and he was in khaki pants and a crisply pressed lavender dress shirt.\u00a0 And a straw hat.\u00a0 Both were the very image of sweet country folk.\u00a0 They were very polite and amiable.\u00a0 We all headed for the three doors that must be traversed to get out to the parking lot.\u00a0 The elderly lady scooted out front with a \u201cLet me get this for you\u201d to my Mom.\u00a0 But when she twisted the lever handle, nothing happened.<\/div>\n
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The door was locked!<\/div>\n
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I tried the door too, but it was definitely locked.\u00a0 There was one other door that went out to the street along the front of the building.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll go out this way\u201d I offered, pointing to the street door, \u201cgo around the building and come in the other way to open this door.\u201d\u00a0 They all agreed this was a good plan.<\/div>\n
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Fortunately this building was not the size of the Pentagon and I was able to circumnavigate (semi-circumnavigate) the building and enter the parking lot door, come through the first two doors (and their associated spaces) and get to the door that was stopping them.\u00a0 It had a simple twist-lock button that popped right out when I turned the lever and opened the door.<\/div>\n
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Yay!<\/div>\n
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We all went through the rest of the building together and out the exterior door.\u00a0 The big white van that had been occupying the other handicapped spot was gone and there was plenty of room to maneuver Moms chair.\u00a0 The elderly couple walked to the car parked on the other side of mine and opened the passenger side doors while I got my passenger door open,\u00a0Mom in her seat, her wheel chair folded, and stowed in the back.<\/div>\n
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As I came around to get in the driver\u2019s door I heard the elderly lady tell the driver of their car\u00a0\u2013 the fellow I had been chatting with while waiting for AAA — \u201cThis nice young man helped us get out.\u00a0 There was a locked door and we couldn\u2019t get out.\u201d\u00a0 The driver smiled at me and said, \u201cWell … this is your day for locks, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/div>\n
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That it was!<\/div>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I took Mom to a doctor’s appointment in the Big City.  This building has 2 handicapped parking spaces just outside the main door to the parking lot – which is nice.  But they are not sized like handicapped spots: they’re just regular parking places with the blue and white wheelchair emblem painted on.  The one … Continue reading “This Was My Locky Day”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-11882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-adventures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20501,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11882\/revisions\/20501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}