“Go Knock Yourself Out!” – Incident at Mile Marker 15

Once again, I’d like to start this story off by saying that Dan is a friend of mine. Also, I don’t consider what he did as stupid, in fact, Dan’s not stupid by any means. Furthermore, this isn’t the first time this has happenned, but if I posted the first story under “Brushes with Stupidity”, my wife would kill me!

I had a doctor’s appointment in the city (it was actually a follow-up visit after a recent extended stay in the hospital for pneumonia), and Dan was kind enough to drive me there. We were cruising down 400 when Dan pulled over onto the shoulder. I had recently had the van serviced, and the hood wasn’t properly secured, so Dan wanted to pull over and take care of it.

Now, as I mentioned above, this has happened to me before. The buttons to lock the doors are located on the armrest of the driver-side door, and they are very easy to hit. Knowing this, I said to Dan as he was getting out, “Don’t lock yourself out.” I wasn’t sure he heard me, and sure enough, I thought I heard the click of the locks. Quickly, I said, “I think- no, no, NO!”, but the door had already shut. Dan went to the front of the van, secured the hood, then looked up at me through the windshield. I must of had a look on my face, because I could actually see his face go pale as the realization of what I actually said and of what had just happened took hold. Dan tried all the doors, but it was no use; I was locked in.

This reminds me of a joke: “Did you hear about the blonde who locked her keys in her car? It took her over an hour to get out!”

Well, there we were on the shoulder of 400 at mile marker 15; me locked in a running van, and Dan locked out, trying desperately to think of a way to get back in. To make matters worse, Dan had taken his cell phone out of his pocket, so it was locked safely in the van with me. He had no way of calling for help. Even if he did, we had limited options. Normally, I would have called home and asked my wife to drive the 20 to 30 minutes with the extra key. The problem with that option was this just happened to be the day before my wife was scheduled to deliver our twin boys. She had experienced enough stress with the aforementioned pneumonia scare, so this really wasn’t an option. Our only other choice was 911. So, Dan flagged a car down on the nearby enterance ramp and made the call. I can just imagine it now: “Hello, 911.” “Yeah, I just locked my friend in a van, and I can’t get him out.”

So, about 20 to 30 minutes later, an emergency vehicle shows up. After getting the scoop from Dan, they set to work. I thought they would simply use what we used to call a “flat-jack”, which was a flat rod that slid down between the window and door frame, and with a little effort, you could trigger the lock mechanism. I’ve seen the police where I grew use them many times. Well, apparently they don’t use those anymore, because these guys had what looked like a heavy-duty wire hanger and a wedge. All I was thinking was “Please don’t damage the van!” They knocked the wedge into the door frame to pry it open and tried inserting the wire. This wasn’t working, so one of the guys went back to the truck and came back with an axe! Now I’m really sweating! “What are they going to do with that?! My God, what’s next? The Jaws of Life?!” Fortunately, they just needed to knock the wedge in a little further. After another 20 minutes of working at it, I was set free.

Both Dan and I thanked the emergency workers thoroughly, and when we were on our way again, I asked Dan, “Did you hear me say ‘Don’t lock yourself out.’ when you were getting out of the van?” He replied, “I heard you say something, but I thought it was, ‘Go knock yourself out.’ I was wondering why you would say that.” Really, Dan?! “Go knock yourself out?!”

Anyway, I wasn’t mad at him. In fact, the whole time I was locked in the van, I was thinking that if this had to happen, I’m glad that it was with him. He kept his head and just did what was necessary to get the problem solved. However, as usual, I still need to give him a hard time, and it’s a funny story. Now every once in a while I’ll just say to him out of the blue, “Hey Dan, go knock yourself out!”